Supermarket giant fined over mice in store

Published by Hannah Wooderson for 24dash.com in Local Government

A supermarket in Suffolk has been ordered to pay out thousands of pounds after mice were seen running around the store, a council has said.

A Tesco branch was found guilty of a number of hygiene-related offences after a trial at South East Suffolk Magistrates' Court in Ipswich.

Suffolk Coastal District Council said its food safety team found a "catalogue of problems" at the Tesco Extra store in Martlesham, near Ipswich.

A spokeswoman for the council said because of poor cleaning and inadequate procedures, parts of the store had become dirty and mice were active in many areas.

She said members of the public reported seeing the rodents running between the aisles.

"It is bad enough not to have had in place the basic safeguards that would have prevented rodents gaining access to the store, but I am amazed at the lack of serious action then taken to put an end to the problem," said councillor Sherrie Green.

The council said Tesco was fined £17,000 and required to pay £57,000 towards the authority's costs.

A Tesco spokesman said: "Tesco takes hygiene standards extremely seriously. Our customers expect clean and safe stores and we have thousands of people employed at Tesco to deliver this."

The store committed eight offences under the Food Hygiene Regulations including failing to ensure adequate procedures were in place to control pests at a food premises and failing to ensure the food premises was kept clean, said the council spokeswoman.

The offences happened between April and August 2007.