Tampered food labels: Case against food firm

Manama : Police yesterday registered a complaint against a food ingredients company for tampering with the expiry dates on product labels.

According to a former employee of the company, expired food items were being supplied to customers after altering the expiry dates.

DT News has reported on November 15 that the woman, a Manama resident, who worked at the firm for over 15 years, was going to sue her former employers.

She claimed that the company, which supplies ingredients for cakes, chocolates and other desserts, distributed expired items to hotels, schools and restaurants after having the labels changed, an allegation that the firm has denied. 

“I have filed the complaint at the Budaiya Police Station. Though I hired a lawyer on October 23, the process was going slower than I expected. So I decided to register a police case in order to speed up the process,” she said.

She added that the police have got in touch with her lawyer, who is providing them with necessary details. 

The petitioner says that she was unaware of the company’s activities when she joined the company. However she did not dare to report the crime of fear of losing her job.

She is a single mother with a young daughter to take care of. 

She claimed to have tried to warn clients secretly by sending them pictures of the expired products and how the labels were changed.  

She says she was fired after her boss discovered this. 

Five-star hotels, restaurants, schools, private villas and other companies are among the victims, she revealed.

“What the company has done over the years is a terrible crime. People all over Bahrain have been eating expired food because of them,” she added.

She further claims that Bahrainis as well as Asians at the company were allegedly involved in the crime. 

“I know that the senior management are also involved in it. However the actual tampering with the product labels were done by Asian workers under the instruction of their superiors,” she said.

She also claims to have recorded a video showing workers tampering with the labels, calling it her “best evidence”.

Company officials have dismissed her allegations accusing her of trying to extort BD100,000 by blackmailing the management after her job contract was terminated. 

A company representative told DT News earlier that they were under the control of health authorities and suppliers could not be fooled by tampering with the labels.

He also dismissed the video, saying she tricked the men into doing it.