A convenience-store owner in Halifax has been fined more than £3,000 for offering rotten produce for sale.
An investigation by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) led to the £3,100 fine for Mohammed Ilyas, owner of the A&A Foods convenience store business at Mayfield Grove in Halifax. Ilyas was prosecuted for displaying and offering for sale fresh fruit and vegetables that did not meet EC marketing standards on quality and labelling. He pleaded guilty to nine separate breaches of the standards on 13 January at Halifax Magistrates’ Court.
Ilyas had been offering courgettes, loquats, strawberries, cucumbers and nectarines all from Spain with quality defects and Conference pears, Maroc Late oranges, Royal Gala apples, spring onions and apricots all on display with labelling defects.
He was fined £400 each for the four quality offences and the five labelling breaches were awarded £300 per offence, making a total fine of £3,100. Full prosecution and investigation costs of £3,300 were also imposed, giving a total liability of £6,400 plus the victims’ surcharge of £15.
The case followed a series of risk-based enforcement visits and inspections, carried out by the RPA’s Horticultural Marketing Inspectorate (HMI), over a 12-month period between June 2010 and June 2011.
During this time, HMI inspectors provided initial advice and guidance to support and inform the business in an effort to gain compliance. This then led to more targeted enforcement visits involving the issue of increased instruction and direction.
Paul Caldwell, operations director at RPA said:
“Concerted efforts were made by the HMI to work closely with the firm’s proprietor and people with face-to-face meetings, verbal warnings and formal written notices, all aimed at achieving improved compliance from the company. As a last resort and in the interests of both the consumer and the fruit and vegetable industry, we had to prosecute.”
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