Fake, expired and unsafe food products confiscated in Hazyview | Mpumalanga News

Thousands of fake, expired and unsafe food products were confiscated from various shops in Hazyview during a multi-stakeholder business inspection on May 23.

According to Brenda Mabaso, the chief director for business regulations and governance at the Mpumalanga Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDT), it is the department’s responsibility to ensure all businesses are compliant with relevant by-laws.

The DEDT is also mandated to ensure all products on sale are safe to consume and properly stored with packaging in good condition. She said that most of these shops are run by foreign nationals and some are not registered.

We inspected about 22 shops and fake products, expired goods and packaged products that had been tampered with were discovered. We found soft drinks with brand names, but they looked totally different. That tells you that something is not right,” Mabaso said.

According to her, some shop owners sell products they manufacture and package themselves. They could not, however, tell what ingredients were used and had no idea of packaging measurements.

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“We have had several fatalities as a result of a foodborne illness outbreak attributed to shops that failed to comply with health and business regulations. Even children died from food poisoning after eating food they bought from these shops. We believe the food was contaminated during manufacturing and packaging. This makes the need to address this urgent,” Mabaso said.

Confiscated products included counterfeit spices masquerading as a well-known brand, soft drinks, sweets and processed meat.

All of these were handed to the City of Mbombela to dispose of. The unregistered shops received warnings and were given three days to comply.

“Non-compliant businesses will be shut down. The regulations and by-laws are there to ensure consumers get their money’s worth and that products are safe to consume,” Mabaso concluded.

The MEC for the DEDT, Makhosazane Masilela, who participated in the inspection, welcomed the outcome. She said inspections would be ongoing until all shops are compliant for the safety of consumers. “Our department should engage with the brand manufacturers as we believe that is where the problem starts. We found products in certain shops that owners said were received in a bad state. We are going to engage with them and offer workshops if need be,” Masilela said.