Shania Shayal Prasad 
The Consumer Council of Fiji is raising concerns over the growing number of repeat offenders in the retail food sector, particularly supermarkets that continue to violate food safety regulations.
Chief Executive Seema Shandil is frustrated over the ongoing non-compliance with the Food Safety Act, despite numerous inspections and consultations with relevant stakeholders.
She adds that in the past two years alone, the council has received 965 complaints on these issues.
“We have seen that supermarkets and other retailers continuously or repeatedly engage in such practices or unethical practices, and sometimes they blame that as human error, but human error will happen once or twice; it cannot continuously happen, and our market surveillance also reveals the same.”
Shandil highlights several recurring issues identified through market surveillance, including the sale of expired products, low-quality food items, and mislabeling or misleading advertisements.
