– many popular city retailers found culpable
THE GOVERNMENT Analyst Food and Drug Department has decided to turn up the heat in its bid to protect consumers from purchasing expired products.

In light of this decision, the Department has intensified its inspection campaign and has been focusing its attention on supermarkets, the bonds of supermarkets and of importers, as well as retail outlets, Director, Mrs. Marilyn Collins, told the Guyana Chronicle in an exclusive interview on Friday.

And, based on seizures made and feedback from her officers, Collins said there seems to be an increase in expired goods being offered for sale to consumers, some at rather eye-catching prices.

But Collins said that despite the vigilance of her staff and the existence of legislation to prosecute those in breach, the paltry fines legislated is disheartening.

This, she suggested, may be the reason behind some persons continuing to take the risk and display expired goods on their shelves.

She is therefore urging the public to be ever vigilant when making purchases, by ensuring that they check the expiry date on products and report any breaches they find to the Department.

She is also calling on supermarket proprietors to monitor their stocks as well as their bonds to ensure they don’t have expired goods on their hands.

She said that through monitoring, proprietors will know what products are nearing the expiry date, and that they are the ones who have to institute systems to ensure that those products are sold quickly and that they do not remain on the shelves.

Collins, who says she’s baffled as to the reason for the sudden upsurge in expired goods on the market, said this development is posing  a challenge to her Department, because once a product, be it food or drugs, is expired, it is  in violation of the Food & Drugs Act and Regulation.

“Once the food is expired, the manufacturer is saying to us that he is not giving us any guarantee relative to both the quality and safety of the food … Once the expiry date has passed, then the manufacturer is saying I am not liable anymore…”

According to Collins, officers of her department report having seen expired goods on the shelves of supermarkets, and to having received numerous complaints from consumers that a number of expired foods are being offered on the domestic market.

She noted that some of the seized goods, although they have may have expired for as long as two years ago, were still on the shelves on some supermarkets and being offered for sale to the public.

To the suggestion that consumers are sometimes told that products still have a shelf life after the expiry date, Collins remarked that that is a fallacy.

“Once an expiry date has passed for a food, product or drug, it is expired,” she remarked, adding: “There is no leverage to say you can extend the shelf life for anther three or six months.

She pointed out, however, that there are other types of date-marks which are seen on products such as ‘Sell By Date’, which she explained is equivalent to an expiry date.

Also, products can have a ‘Best Before Date’, which technically means that even though the date may have expired, the food may have lost its quality characteristic, but could still be safe.

She used as an example an orange juice with a ‘Best Before Date’,  which, when examined closely, is found to have lost its quality characteristic, in that it is discoloured, but could still be safe for consumption  without any harm being done.

Collins, however, categorically stated that it is not the policy of her department to extend the dates that are indicated, since even though technically ‘Best Before Date’ might indicate safety, the product  can still have defects in terms of quality.

And so, her department is equating ‘Best Before’ to mean an expiry date, she said.

Just recently, the Department seized expired Welch’s and V8 juices and other items as part of a stepped-up food safety drive.

In a statement, the Department said it has already inspected 14 supermarkets and 20 storage bonds, including wholesalers, retailers, distributors and importers’ bonds, in addition to points-of-sale.

Notable violations, the Department said, were found and regulatory actions were taken, including the seizure of expired items, products with no expiration dates, those that showed evidence that the expiration date had been tampered with, deformed and rusted cans, and those which boasted close-coded dates. Action was also taken against premises that were insanitary.

During its inspections, the Department said, it seized a quantity of Welch’s Harvest Blend juice which had expired since around this time last year (18-07-090; V8 Splash Medley, which had expired in June (20-06-10); Juicy Juice, which had expired in March (15-03-10); curry powder which featured a 17-05-10 expiration date; pasta sauce, which had expired on 19-06-10; and Flavor Mate Chinese Sauce, which had expired on 04-04-09.

The Department has reiterated that all products displayed for sale must be properly labelled in accordance with the Food and Drug Regulations of 1977, Section 18, and that all mandatory label information must be in English, including the expiry date and country of origin, complete with the name and address of the manufacturer or packager.

“Supermarket proprietors must also demand a valid authorisation and/or licence from suppliers as evidence that products are manufactured under hygienic conditions and comply with the label requirements,” the Department said.

It also noted that supermarkets that package “high-risk products such as milk, cheese, sausage must have designated areas in keeping with best hygiene practice to carry out this activity.”

Meanwhile, the Department is currently distributing its requirements to all supermarkets, and is advising those not in receipt of the standards to obtain same from its offices at the IAST Building at UG’s Turkeyen Campus.