Repeated selling of out-of-date food has landed Asda in hot water in Wales, with Trading Standards claiming the supermarket’s stock control procedures are not working.

Asda was in court in Abergavenny in the same week that Tesco and Sainsbury’s came under fire over a range of shocking practices, such as breaches of hygiene procedures, that were revealed in a BBC documentary.

Magistrates fined Asda £80,000 for 59 offences of selling out-of-date food in its Newport and Cwmbran stores, including a pack of lamb chops 31 days past their use-by date.

This is the third time the supermarket has been in a Welsh court over out-of-date food in 14 months, and Cardiff Trading Standards says it must look at stock control procedures again.

“We have had problems at all three Asda stores in Cardiff,” said Cardiff Trading Standards operational manager Stephen Grey. “News of out-of-date items does not seem to be filtering through to management quickly enough.”

Asda had introduced a ‘Target Zero’ system in its Cardiff stores to stamp out all out-of-date breaches in 2004 but was fined £15,000 in February 2005 for stocking food that was up to eight days out of date.

In April this year Asda was fined £42,500 after more than 500 out-of-date products were found in Cardiff Bay, Coryton and Pentwyn. The magistrate in charge of that case criticised the Target Zero system and said he was not satisfied the supermarket had taken all necessary steps to avoid repeating the error.

“The company needs to be aware of the situation to be in a position to take steps to avoid such offences,” said district judge Gerwyn Watkins.

Asda has retrained staff working in the stores involved and is now implementing a review of date code management. It has employed external consultants to advise them on how to tackle the problem.

“The system clearly isn’t being implemented properly in some stores,” said an Asda spokeswoman. “It is carried out by human beings so there is always room for error, but we are not happy with the performance so far. We hope to have a complete revised system in place by Christmas.”

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