In another incident of expired food items sold in departmental stores, an engineering student from Coimbatore found live insects crawling inside a packet of dates that he had reportedly bought from Kannan Departmental Stores near Ondipudhur, Coimbatore.

While the store had returned the money for the pack, it had however not changed the packs in the rack from which the expired one was taken.

S. Tilak, a 20-year-old student took to Facebook to report about insects found in the dates pack on June 14. Talking to the Covai Post about the incident, Tilak said that he had bought the pack on June 6, and noticed the insects a week later. “I had consumed some dates before I found insects in the rest of the packet, among the remaining dates. I was completely taken aback,” he said.

He further added that the expiry date was still five months away as the dates were packed on May 15. “I tried to take the issue to the store and called the customer helpline. They took back the packet and also informed me that I was not the only one who had reported the issue and they had received similar complaints,” he told the Covai Post.

However, to his surprise, the store had returned his money, but had not removed the packs from the rack, which obviously had the same packing and expiry dates.

When the Covai Post tried to reach the customer helpline number, they could not be reached.

A senior official in the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department said that the departmental store had scant regard to Food Safety norms that clearly state that the store should be accountable for bad quality products. “Kannan Departmental stores provides space for the vendors to sell their products without keeping any check on quality. The store takes a commission from the quantity of the products sold,” the official added.