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Tesco has been fined £7.6m for selling food past its 'use by' date. This is a big fine which might have been reduced if the Court had allowed expert evidence in mitigation.
I wrote an article last year on the issue of use by dates following the Court's preliminary ruling in the Tesco case which prevented reliance on such evidence: Is it time to review food use-by dates? The Court ruled that there is a presumption that food past its use by date is unsafe for human consumption and this presumption cannot be rebutted by expert evidence to the contrary, even where a 'short' date has been used for quality purposes, rather than for reasons of safety.
Tesco has been fined £7.56m by a judge for selling out of date food at three of its Birmingham stores. The supermarket chain was handed the penalty by a judge at Birmingham magistrates court on Monday and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £95,500, Birmingham city council said. It was also ordered to pay a £170 victim surcharge. The fine was handed down after Tesco admitted 22 breaches of the food safety and hygiene regulations between 2016 and 2017.
