tmorris@thekmgroup.co.uk
by Thom Morris

A bride says her wedding day was almost ruined after she picked up a Weight Watchers chocolate dessert a week out of date.

Laura Whitehead from Vimy Drive, Dartford bought two portions of the low fat desert from Asda in Greenhithe on October 25.

But as she went to spoon the Belgian chocolate dairy dessert into her mouth, her fiance James, 27, who works in IT, spotted it was a week out of date.

Laura, 29, said: "Imagine my disgust when I discovered that they were five days past their use by date. These products have a short life following manufacture, after which they may present a risk of food poisoning.

"Thankfully my fiance spotted this gross negligence, as without doubt if we’d eaten these five days past their use by date we’d have both ended up in hospital with food poisoning."

Laura added: "When I went into the store to lodge my complaint the manager didn’t take it remotely seriously. He shrugged and said it was human error and could give me 100 reasons why it might have happened.

"I don’t think this is remotely good enough. He said stock was checked twice a day for errors like this. That means that not only one person missed this, but the error was missed 10 times over the course of five days.

"A friend of mine bought out of date quiche from the store last year. Hers was three days out of date and she had food poisoning."

A spokesman for Asda said the store prides itself on being able to offer the highest quality products possible.

He said: "Unfortunately on this occasion it looks like we didn’t live up to our own high standards.

"Human error led to this product hanging around on the shelves a little longer than it should have done, and we apologise to Mrs Whitehead for that.

"We can reassure your readers that the store has done a full date code check on all similar products and has found this to be an isolated incident.

"We have refunded Mrs Whitehead the value of the product and also given her a £10 gift card to make up for our mistake."