King's Road Safeway fined £34,OOO for selling contaminated food

3 September 2003

Biscuits and bread gnawed by mice and contaminated by mice droppings were amongst the goodies available on the shelves of Safeway in the Kings Road. And on visiting the store Environmental Health Officers from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea also found proof of mice infestation throughout the store on repeated occasions.

Safeway today (3 September) paid the price as it was fined £34,000 and ordered to pay £20,000 towards the Council's costs.

At the hearing at Marylebone Magistrates' Court, Safeway pleaded guilty to two charges of selling bread and biscuits that were not of the quality demanded by customers, and to further charges of failing to protect food from contamination and of failing to ensure that adequate procedures were in place to ensure mice and other pests were controlled.

They were fined £15,000 for each of the first two offences and £4,000 for the last offence. The company was also ordered to pay £1,100 in compensation to the customers who had bought the bread and biscuits.

Cllr Richard Walker-Arnott, Cabinet Member for Environmental Health, Leisure and Waste Management, said: "I'm glad to see the District Judge has taken a properly stern view of Safeway's reckless neglect of customers at their store on the King's Road. Safeway's reluctance to deal with mice infestation, despite repeated warnings and visits by our Environmental Health Officers, created a threat to the health of many residents of the Borough and subjected some to real distress. This was a cause for serious concern for the Council.

He continued: "We take our public protection role very seriously and will not hesitate to take enforcement action wherever public health is being put at risk, as was the case in this instance. No matter what size the company, it is unacceptable to sell contaminated food to the public. On that there can be no compromise."

On passing sentence, District Judge Roscoe commented that Safeway had shown "sloppy and ineffective co-operation" with the Council's Environmental Health Officers, and that the officers' warnings were "effectively disregarded" by the company. It was, she said, a "serious and prolonged infestation" and that the supermarket chain's "early inaction was only too apparent".

Environmental Health Officers were first called in to investigate sightings of mice in properties surrounding the Safeway store in January 2002. Having tracked down the source of the health threat, they advised Safeway as to the steps the store should take to address the problem.

However in February 2002 a customer who had bought biscuits, and another who had bought a loaf of bread, complained to the Council that the food had been gnawed by mice.

Subsequent follow-up visits by Environmental Health Officers as a result of these complaints discovered that the mice infestation had not been adequately dealt with, despite discussions that had taken place with Environmental Health Officers and letters that had been sent to the store.

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