A SUPERMARKET chain fined £4,000 for selling food after it's use by date has had the penalty reduced on appeal.

The Kwik Save branch in Bolton Street, Chorley, was investigated by Lancashire County Council's Trading Standards Department after a customer purchased a carton of orange juice which should have been removed from the shelves nine days earlier.

A trading standards officer found five food items being sold in the supermarket beyond their use by date when she visited the next day.

She also discovered two products which did not have such a date printed on them.

Kwik Save Stores Ltd pleaded guilty at Chorley Magistrates earlier this year to two charges of breaching food labelling regulations, and were fined £4,000.

The sentence was appealed at Preston Crown Court and Judge Edward Slinger reduced the fine to £2,000 after agreeing the magistrates had been too severe. Nick Kennedy, prosecuting, told the court that after the investigation by the trading standards department in October last year, the store manager and representatives of Kwik Save were interviewed.

They said the company had a system which ensured that use by dates were observed but, on this occasion, the system had failed.

Jane Tracy-Forster, representing Kwik Save, submitted that the fines imposed had been too high.

It was not a case where the food sold had been unfit for human consumption and there had been no potential danger to the public.

Miss Tracy-Forster said :"The company are very distressed these offences were committed.

"This was a slip-up and, in the circumstances, to impose fines at this level was grossly disproportionate."

She added that staff had since been re-trained.

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