The 2 Sisters Food Group was warned eight years ago that staff could be changing the dates on its chicken products, it has emerged as food industry regulators widened their investigation into the business to 12 poultry processing plants operated by the company.
Jack Dromey, the shadow business secretary, said he had told the multimillionaire owner of 2 Sisters, Ranjit Singh Boparan, about workers informing him that dates on the company’s chicken were changed, “so that meat, that should have been thrown away, was sold to supermarkets”. Dromey’s claims follow a Guardian and ITV News investigation that revealed poor hygiene standards and food safety records being altered at a 2 Sisters plant in West Bromwich.
Dromey, who was deputy general secretary of the the Transport and General Workers’ union before being elected as MP for Birmingham Erdington in 2010, said the conversation took place during negotiations between the two men in 2009, over the reinstatement of 59 workers sacked in relation to a wildcat strike at the 2 Sisters’ former factory in Smethwick.
The comments come after 2 Sisters, the country’s largest supplier of supermarket chicken, suspended production at the West Bromwich plant on Sunday after the joint investigation, which captured undercover footage of an instance of workers changing the slaughter dates of poultry.
Dromey said: “Some of [Boparan’s] workers, who he had sacked, told us that often the dating of chicken meat was changed so that meat that should have been thrown away was sold to supermarkets. I remember that vividly and putting it to Ranjit Singh and not for one moment did he deny it.
“He accepted that there were practices within the company that he said the company was already addressing and they were determined to clean their act up. Well it’s clear from the evidence available now that, whatever may have happened at the end of 2009, 2010, there remain very significant problems within 2 Sisters.”
The Guardian and ITV’s footage on “kill date” labels being switched was filmed in August, about four miles away from the old Smethwick site in the West Bromwich plant, called Site D.
When contacted about Dromey’s remarks on the former factory in Smethwick, 2 Sisters declined to respond to them specifically.
Instead it issued a statement about its West Bromwich plant, that read: “As we made clear, the Food Standards Agency has been carrying out investigations at Site D on a daily basis since the allegations were first made public.
“Site D was also subject to regular, often unannounced audits in the weeks preceding your investigation. None of these audits or investigations have identified any issues or any breaches of regulations.
“We are continuing to support our colleagues during our retraining period and we remain committed to ensuring that we operate to the highest standards of hygiene and food safety, and we act with honesty and integrity at all times.”
Separately, a quality assurance manager who worked at Site D during 2009 has told the Guardian and ITV News that kill labels were changed in the factory at that time and that sometimes this happened more than once a day.
The manager said complaints about the date switches were made to more senior managers, but the practice was not stopped. “It was more important to get the amount of orders through the door,” the manager said.
Experts said altering “kill dates” could artificially stretch the commercial life of the meat and dupe consumers into buying chicken past its use-by date. It is illegal to place incorrect use-by dates on food, which are set for safety reasons and differ from “best before” dates.
The comments by Dromey and the former worker come after Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl all suspended deliveries from the West Bromwich plant, which 2 Sisters then announced on Sunday would be temporarily shut after the company had discovered “some isolated instances of non-compliance with our own quality management systems”.
Announcing the widening of its investigation on Friday, the Food Standards Agency said it was now looking at a total of 11 sites in England and Wales while its Scottish counterpart said it was also looking at one plant. The FSA said it had not found any threats to public health at the West Bromwich plant but it had identified issues that required “management attention”. The investigation is centred on food hygiene and labelling.
“Consumers deserve food they can trust and can be reassured that we take allegations of poor practice very seriously,” said the FSA chairwoman, Heather Hancock. “Although our initial inspection [of the West Bromwich site] found no risk to public health, we are broadening our investigations until we are satisfied that this is truly the case.”
In a statement, the FSA said its initial investigation at the Site D plant had highlighted “issues requiring management attention”, pointing to staff training and stock control. The organisation is now looking at whether there were training and stock control – or labelling – issues at other sites, although labelling falls outside the FSA’s remit and requires liaising with local authorities.
The FSA added that it was working with the major retailers supplied by 2 Sisters and reviewing information from other sources. The other plants that will be investigated are in locations ranging from Cullompton in Devon to Anglesey in Wales, Coupar Angus in Scotland, Scunthorpe and Basildon.
In a conference call with its investors on Tuesday, 2 Sisters management admitted they had found “other areas of concern”, centred on food hygiene standards, at the West Bromwich site. The company also said the closure would cost the company up to £500,000 a week and that it was treating the incident as a “wake-up call”.
“We do not believe that we have got any major compliance issues in our organisation,” said the 2 Sisters chief operating officer, Martyn Fletcher, on the call. “It’s isolated to this particular video footage and we have, in investigating the site, found some other areas of concern at that site.”
Commenting on the extension of the FSA investigation to all of the company’s poultry plants, 2 Sisters said: “We receive regular audits at all our English and Welsh sites by the FSA throughout the year, so of course we will welcome our FSA colleagues at any location they wish to inspect in the coming days.”
