BABY food nine months past its ‘best before’ date has been taken off the shelves of Burnley’s Tesco store.

Environmental officers from Burnley Council visited the store yesterday following a complaint from a shocked mum who discovered jars of ‘Organix’ food which had the best before date of September 2012.

Other jars were marked March 2013.

A Tesco spokesman apologised and said it was an ‘isolated incident’.

The out-of-date products were discovered by Lian Pate, 39, who visited the Centenary Way store on Monday evening to buy baby food for her seven-month-old son Hugh.

Lian, who lives on Glen View Road with her partner Paul and their three children, said: “That baby food is older than my baby - it was out of date two months before my baby was born.

“It wasn’t just one jar - it was every one on the shelf.

"I was having a look for a few jars of food that we could use for days when he's at my grans.

“Tesco had a line of ‘Organix’ food that had been reduced.

"When I checked the lids some of it was as much as nine months out of date.

"The whole line was out of date, most of it by three months. Who would give their baby food that is nine months past it's best before date?

“I think its a disgrace that they even considered selling it.

"I would advise other mums to check the dates and not just rely on supermarkets to do the checking!”

Lian contacted a Trading Standards helpline the next day to report that the product was being sold beyond the best before date.

Although the food was only beyond a ‘best before’ date and not a ‘use by’ date, Lian said that it still gave her cause for concern, as baby food is a high-risk product, and because the product had gone out of date so long ago.

‘Best before’ dates relate to quality, indicating how long the food will remain in best condition and in some circumstances food can be sold after the specified date, whereas ‘use by’ dates appear on foods that go off quickly and specify the last date they can be safely eaten.

Environmental Health officers from Burnley Council visited the store yesterday and asked Tesco to withdraw the baby food from sale.

A Burnley Council spokesman said: “We took a phone call about jars of baby food on the shelves being past their ‘best before’ date. We immediately contacted the supermarket and it has taken the jars off the shelf.

“The council has contacted Trading Standards to let them know what action we’ve taken.”

Lancashire Telegraph health columnist Dr Tom Smith said: “There is a risk that products in the food could deteriorate and cause the child to become sick. I couldn’t say for certain without testing the product, but the ingredients could curdle or might upset the baby’s stomach.

“Unless the products have been stored incorrectly or the seal is broken there’s a low risk of infection, but especially with organic food as it does not contain preservatives there may be a chemical breakdown of ingredients in the bottle that may upset the baby’s stomach, or the product may deteriorate and lose nutritional value.

“They shouldn’t be selling these products, it’s really wrong.”

A Tesco spokesman said: “We’re really sorry that this product was on our shelves and we’ve been reviewing our procedures to make sure that this isolated incident doesn’t happen again.

“As soon as we became aware of this issue, we removed the products from our shelves. We have thoroughly checked the rest of the products, and are satisfied that they all meet our very high standards of food quality.

“We will of course continue to work with the local authorities in any way we can.”

Steve Stones, technical manager at Organix, said: "We have been made aware that a customer has purchased out of date Organix baby food from a Tesco store in Lancashire.

“We never supply out of date foods and take this matter extremely seriously. Whilst we have no control over what is stocked on retailers’ shelves once our foods enter the supply chain, we would like to reassure our customers that the quality and safety of our foods is our highest priority and we are currently investigating the situation to determine why out of date foods have been stocked at this Tesco store.”