The City of Cape Town confiscated expired baked goods from a coffee shop in Mitchells Plain.
This was after a customer, Thembile Nikiwe, bought cake at Rockstar Coffee at Liberty Promenade shopping centre on Tuesday morning and when he lifted the price sticker, he discovered that it expired on January 1.
“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.”
The inspectors educated the shop owner about the dangers of keeping expired food in the shop.
“My main problem was that they had hidden the price. They told the city that they would refund me and explained that I took the cake from the markdown section.”
Rockstar Coffee admitted that there were 20 cakes which expired.
“We buy from the supplier, and because of the public holidays, the supplier was closed. My employees put a sticker on the expiry date, and we had to mark them down.
“We have removed all the cakes. It was less than 20 cakes. The city was at the shop again on Wednesday. I thank the customer for bringing this up with us. From now on, we are going to take more different measures to avoid such things.”
Community Services and Health Mayco member, Councillor Patricia van der Ross, said their Mitchell’s Plain office received a complaint on Tuesday.
“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.
“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.
“Further action is pending, including the issuing of a fine in terms of relevant legislation, and follow up visits to ensure compliance going forward.”
Van der Ross said that this was the only complaint of this nature received by their Environmental Health office.
“Food safety has been in the spotlight in recent months, and the city calls on consumers and retailers to be mindful of the law, their rights and responsibilities.
“We remind the public to please report any health-related concerns or complaints about businesses. They can contact their local Environmental Health Office for assistance via their local clinic or the city’s Technical Operations Centre on 0860 103 089.”