The City of Cape Town confiscated expired baked products from a coffee shop in Mitchells Plain on Tuesday, 7 January, after a customer discovered that a product had expired on Wednesday, 1 January, Cape {town} Etc reports.
Thembile Nikiwe bought cake at Rockstar Coffee at Liberty Promenade shopping centre, only to discover that the cake had expired when he lifted the price sticker.
‘I went to the shop to buy the cake and found out that it was expired. I went straight to the inspectors and then I went back to the shop […] They removed all the expired cakes and left the shelves empty. I reported it because there were children who died after consuming expired food,’ said Nikiwe.
According to IOL, the inspectors soon informed the shop owner about the hazards of keeping expired food stocked in the shop. In addition, Rockstar Coffee admitted that there were 20 cakes in-store that were expired.
Councillor Patricia van der Ross, Mayco Member for Community Services and Health, said that their Mitchell’s Plain office received a complaint on Tuesday, 7 January.
‘Environmental Health Practitioners (EHPs) followed up immediately, and found evidence to substantiate the complaint in that the manner in which some of the products had been labelled was found to be in contravention of the national Labelling Regulations,’ said Van der Ross.
‘The following actions have been taken: All products with dates that had been tampered with, were seized by the EHPs. The EHPs took the opportunity to educate the shop owner and staff about the relevant regulations,’ Van der Ross added.
Van der Ross also stated that this was the only complaint of this nature that their Environmental Health office had received.
This follows previous reports and a public outcry about expired food sold to customers at various spaza shops across the city.
In November last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation regarding food poisoning incidents all over South Africa that occurred, where there were around 890 cases of foodborne illness, along with the deaths of 22 children since the beginning of September last year.
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Article originally written and published by Jan-Hendrik De Villiers for Cape Etc
