Cancer food is still on sale in our shops

Trading Standards officials in Swindon have sent out 1,300 letters warning of the dangers of products containing Sudan 1 dye and will start spot checks in outlets tomorrow. But the Adver has already found stores selling food on the banned list.

MEALS contaminated with the cancer-causing red dye Sudan 1 were still on the shelves of some stores in Swindon when the Advertiser carried out spot checks.

Major supermarkets appeared to have cleared contaminated products away, but some small shops were still confused about what they can sell.

We checked 13 small convenience stores in the town and found four still selling food banned by the Food Standards Agency.

Manager Sid Bhatia of Bhatia Stores in Crombey Street, which had a pot noodle on sale from a batch containing the dye, said: "I didn't know anything about this.

"Normally the council or the cash and carry write to us and tell us about it.

"We will be taking the pot noodle off the shelf straight away. Of course it would not have been sold if we had known about this."

And in the R.S.N. Premier corner shop in Kent Road one beef and tomato pot noodle was on sale with a sell by date of April 2005 and a box of others with a sell by date of June 2005 that manager Karim Bhimji had been intending to sell before finding out about the recall that bans these dates.

They have now been removed from the shelves and he says they were they not intended to be sold.

The same applied to a Heinz Weight Watcher's Shepherd's Pie, which was in the freezer cabinet with a sell by date of December 2005.

He said: "I had removed all the products I thought should not be eaten."

Robert Taylour, who is responsible for ensuring public safety in the town, said his priority now is to make sure everyone involved in the food industry in Swindon gets any contaminated food off shelves.

"We have sent 1,300 letters out to shopkeepers, restaurateurs and food establishments and suppliers warning them about what they should do.

"We will then be starting spot checks on Thursday to make sure people have removed any contaminated items.

"I am pleased to hear that supermarkets have removed affected items from sale but am not surprised that smaller retailers haven't got to grips with it yet."

Mr Taylour, who is Swindon Council's Public Protection Group Leader, added: "If we find any products that should not be for sale we will ask the retailer to remove them. We would only prosecute if they refuse.

"This is the biggest food scare we have had to deal with in the town."

A spokesman for the Association of Convenience Stores said that legally, once the retailer is aware of the problem, they are required to take it off their shelves.

"Whether it's their fault that they haven't it is not easy to comment on without knowing the individual circumstances but certainly they should be able to find quite easily the information they need to know.

"There are a number of different ways the message is going out and we have been contacting every one of our members by mail over the last few days making them aware of the problem."

The number of products affected by the Sudan 1 recall is now 429, made up of 359 announced last Friday, 60 on Monday and 10 yesterday.

Mistakes on the Food Standard Agency's published list had suggested the number from yesterday was 59.

More than 400 products have been recalled since it emerged that a consignment of Crosse and Blackwell Worcester Sauce, made by Premier Foods, had been contaminated with the potentially cancer-causing dye Sudan 1.

A full list of all the products known to have been affected by date can be found on the Food Standards Agency website on www.food.gov.uk/mulitimedia/pdfs/sudan.pdf

Diana Milne