Woman claims spaza shop sells expired goods

A owner of a New Rest spaza shop denies he is selling expired goods to customers.

This follows claims by customer Ncumisa Mpakama that her niece was sold expired items.

She said she had sent her niece to buy bread and a packet of crisps at D & V Spaza. She said her niece returned only to inform her of an argument she had had with shop assistants over three packets of expired crisps. Mpakama said she had taken a video when she approached the men running the business they remove all expired food items from the shelves.

“They ignored me. I explained that not every customer checks expiry dates when buying goods. In their defence, one of them said they were receiving food items with expired dates from their suppliers. I asked them to take the food items back to their suppliers and not sell them to us.

“I then went back to my car to fetch the bread I had already bought and gave it back to them, saying I could no longer trust them . . . I told them to keep the money and left.” The Rep visited the shop and spoke to one of the shop assistants who did not identify himself. “I have been here for 12 years and no one has ever complained. When we do come across expired products, we take them back to where we bought them. We encourage people to inform us if they come across expired items from our shop. We don’t have any expired food items here. You can check for yourself,” said the shop assistant

Ward 11 councillor Piya Mbasana said she was not aware of this, but was scheduled to meet with the ward committee this week. Information from this meeting was not available at the time of going to press.