Supermarket giant Tesco has removed 66,000 packs of garlic bread from their shelves after an investigation by Aberdeenshire Council’s trading standards.
Officers visited two stores in Aberdeenshire and found that 39 packs of the supermarket’s own-brand garlic bread slices had net weights below the declared weight.
One 290g pack was recorded as having a net weight of 230g.
The investigation resulted in Tesco issuing an emergency product recall.
Legal responsibility lies with the packer of the food. In this case London-based Bakkavor Foods Ltd produced the loaves for Tesco.
Trading Standards manager Wilma Urquhart said: “Aberdeenshire Council’s trading standards service takes these incidents extremely seriously and we were pleased to see that the supermarket acted swiftly following the discovery.
“By issuing an emergency product withdrawal, batches worth £93,000 have been removed from the shelves.
“Our work is very important in protecting both consumers and businesses from unfair competition and the service will continue to work with both Tesco and Bakkavor to ensure legislative compliance.”
A Bakkavor spokesperson have apologised for the error.
She said: “We have put in place a number of measures to prevent a similar incident arising in the future.”
Full story in Tuesday’s Courier.