Two major retailers in Johannesburg were given written warnings and were also ordered to remove expired food items from their shelves as South Africans rushed to get their Christmas shopping done before Wednesday.
A team of health inspectors led by the Gauteng MEC for Finance and Economic Development, Lebogang Maile, inspected a Shoprite grocery store and a Supa Store outlet on Monday.
Both stores were located in the Soweto region and not only did authorities find expired food for sale, but there were also food items on shelves that had no expiry dates printed on the packaging.
Heath inspectors specifically found rat droppings on top of tinned goods at the Shoprite store and said that they were forced to remove expired meat products from the grocer.
“We found rodent waste in one of the tins here and as you can imagine, that’s not good for human consumption. We are not happy and we are going to come back,” the MEC said.
At the Supa Store authorities found sauces and pickle or atchar containers that had no expiry dates.
Authorities also conducted a blitz inspection of a Pick n Pay outlet at Maponya Mall and found that the store and its management were compliant with regulations.
A clampdown on big and small stores
Maile said that government will continue to clamp down on non-compliant spaza shops and food-handling facilities in the province.
“We are going to put more pressure (on shop owners) and we are going to put more resources,” he explained.
“What I can tell you with certainty is that we are taking this process seriously. That’s why we deliberately and consciously decided that we were going for the big guys now and not just the small shops. Government is putting resources to the police, we have inspectors that were here,” he added.
Maile said that the government’s focus for the longest time has been on spaza shops and admitted that they may have dropped the ball on larger shops like Shoprite and Pick n Pay.
“We have to focus on them as well because everyone has got a responsibility to keep the standards and to also ensure that the places that they sell food from are hygienic and that people are not exposed to any danger,” he emphasised.
“Although government was working hard to rid the country of expired goods and improve food handling services, business owners also bear the responsibility to ensure that they comply with the laws of the land,” the MEC said.
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