Fines and prison sentences for operators selling out-of-date food
A letter, sent to project founder Adam Smith, states officers visited the Real Junk Food’s site in Pudsey, Leeds, on 11 April this year and discovered 444 items, which were 6,345 days past the use by date.
The Real Junk Food Project intercepts surplus food from a variety of places including supermarkets, restaurants, wholesalers and food banks.
The food is then judged using 'common sense' and decades of experience to determine if it is fit for human consumption before it is served in the project’s cafés or through its food boutique.
Food safety
The business also operates a pay-as-you-feel policy in a bid to offer an alternative to the conventional payment system as there is no price on any produce in the café.
The letter invited Smith to attend a “formal recorded interview under caution” to discuss the offences, which may have been committed under the Food Safety & Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013.
Smith told the BBC that it had made food “unfit for human consumption available to the general public” since 2013 without complaint.
He said the business had 127 sites in seven countries across the world, fed more than one million people worldwide with expired food and claimed no one had been sick, which proved the food was safe for human consumption.
Safe for human consumption
He added: “I’m quite positive about it. Just because it is the law, doesn’t make it right. We can prove the food is safe for human consumption.
“We are not going to stop serving food to people that’s expired because it will then go to waste and that’s the reason that we are here.”
He also said he hoping the meeting at trading standards would help create a debate around the legislation, according to reports.
West Yorkshire Trading Standards said it was unable to comment on the details of ongoing investigations except to say that the director of The Real Junk Food Project of Leeds will be invited to put forward information as part of the investigation process.
It added: "That will help inform the decision on what, if any, action will be taken.
"So as to avoid any further confusion to the general public, West Yorkshire Trading Standards wish to reiterate the relevant legal provisions and the Food Standards Agency official advice in relation to minimum durability marking of food products."
