Food: Safety

Mr. Scott
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what further steps she plans to take to ensure that food that is past its use-by date is not sold to the public.

Caroline Flint
Legislation requires that food business operators ensure that all food sold or supplied is safe for human consumption. Most pre-packed food must also be labelled with a use-by date or a best before date as an indication of minimum durability. It is illegal to sell food after its use-by date.

Responsibility for enforcing this legislation falls to local authorities, who carry out checks to ensure that hygiene and labelling requirements are met, taking enforcement action where appropriate.