JUST hours after President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation about food safety, Woolworths yesterday called on its customers to only buy Woolworths-labelled products from its stores or through the Woolworths online channel.
This comes after seven people were arrested when police raided a factory where workers were allegedly packaging and altering dates on expired cans of Lucky Star fish in Woolworths-branded cartons.
“Whilst this investigation is ongoing, we have strong reason to believe that the product in question may have formed part of an imported shipment from an international supplier that was rejected by Woolworths, as a result of it failing to meet our stringent quality control standards.
In the event of product being rejected, it becomes the immediate responsibility of the supplier to collect and dispose of the stock from our warehouse responsibly,” it said in a statement.
The company said it had launched its own investigation to determine why the process was not adhered to in this instance.
“At Woolworths, we take food safety and the wellbeing of our customers extremely seriously. It is our number one priority,” it said.
The issue of food safety has become a public emergency after the recent increase in cases of food-borne illnesses and deaths as a result of contaminated food.
On Friday Ramaphosa said there were 890 reported incidents of food-borne illnesses across all provinces since the beginning of September, with Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal the most affected.
At least 22 children had died from food-borne illnesses , the youngest was six.
He said the death of six children in Naledi, Soweto was as a result of Terbufos, a highly hazardous chemical used as a pesticide.
Terbufos can have serious health effects, even at low levels of exposure and was registered for agricultural use in South Africa, not general household use, Ramaphosa said.
However, it was “informally sold” as a pesticide to control rats, he said.
“ The investigations that have taken place do not suggest any deliberate campaign to poison children in our country. There is also no evidence that the problem is confined to spaza shops owned by foreign nationals only. These products are just as likely to be sold in shops owned by South Africans,” he said.
.Several interventions would be implemented to deal with the problem which included getting the hazardous pesticides off the street, protecting children from exposure to these substances and preventing future outbreaks.
“The spaza shops which have been implicated in the deaths of children will be closed with immediate effect,” Ramaphosa said.
He told consumers and parents to only buy food from places that were licensed to sell foodstuffs and observed food safety regulations.
“Establishments found to be in possession of pesticides that are restricted or banned will face legal consequences,” he warned.