Consumers should not accept vermin in supermarkets as a fact of life, New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle says.
His comments come in the wake of two Woolworths-owned supermarkets in the South Island suffering issues with rats and mice.
Dunedin South Countdown has been closed since last Friday amid an ongoing issue with rats, while yesterday, shocking video emerged from Eastgate Countdown in Christchurch showing a mouse crawling over an uncovered ready-to-eat salad in the deli cabinet.
A food safety official was at the store yesterday, and Arbuckle told Breakfast conversations were ongoing with senior Woolworths management.
Consumers should not accept vermin in food retail establishments as a fact of life, New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle says. (Source: Breakfast)
Arbuckle said consumers should not accept that vermin were part-and-parcel of life in the food retail industry.
“No, we should not expect that at all, that’s totally unacceptable and that’s certainly Woolworths’ view as well.”
New Zealand Food Safety was keeping an “open mind” as to whether it’s a wider problem at Woolworths, and was looking at the company’s systems and processes when it comes to pest management.
In Dunedin, he said Woolworths had done the right thing in remaining closed while they tried to get the problem under control.
Each store was responsible for its pest plan and they were verified regularly.
They were working with Woolworths to make sure its systems were robust and thorough.
”(When) you’ve got a large operation with many stores, sometimes challenging to make sure a system is deployed consistently and any incidents are reported up to management quickly.”
In a statement yesterday, Woolworths director of stores Jason Stockill said the mouse incident in Christchurch took place last Wednesday.
"The incident was reported and Rentokil came to the site and identified some entry points which have now been sealed. A dead mouse was found the next day, indicating our pest control programme is working and there have been no sightings since.
"We would like to apologise to our customers for this incident and reassure them that food safety remains a focus for us.
"While rodent control is an ongoing focus for the food industry and we believe this was an isolated incident, we take this extremely seriously and are reviewing our pest management control programme for the store alongside Rentokil.
"Our store team work hard every day to maintain our high standards for cleanliness and work closely with pest control services to manage rodent populations that can be found in urban areas."
In Dunedin, the store initially closed for 48 hours from Friday night, but that has been extended, with RNZ reporting close to 20 rats had been caught.
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