Sometime in March this year, two friends of mine who resided abroad for many years, visited me and complained that they visited a certain supermarket in Basseterre to purchase Turkey Sausages and they observed that the expiry date on the sausages was January 2007.
They pointed it out to one of the workers on the floor. They did not purchase them. They argued with me (because I was saying that they were wrong. Business people could not be so unscrupulous).
In April, they came back again and reported that the sausages were still on display, but that the price tag covered the expiry date. I still doubted my friends, even though our friendship was fostered since we were attending boys and girls school.
They were mad with me for disbelieving them. They came back the Saturday before Labour Day and told me that the sausages were still on display and that the price tag was still covering the expiry date. I promised that I would investigate the matter.
On May 30th, I received a telephone call from one of them asking me if I did my Sherlock Holmes, meaning my investigation. I told them that I had not and promised to do it right away. I donned my clothes after taking a shower and headed for the Supermarket. I was totally shocked when I was pointed to the Turkey sausages by one of the floor staff; for I discovered that what my friends were telling me all along was true, but what I also discovered was very unhealthy and unethical. Thank you I do not eat meat.
I discovered that the Turkey Sausages were covered with a paper wrapper which went right around the sausages. The area which proclaimed the expiry date was turnoff or scratched out. So intent were they to fool the public that, in some cases, there were hardly any wrapper on the sausages.
I drew the attention of a business lady who was very surprised. Upon examining the other brands of sausages, I noted that they were packaged in plastic containers and the expiry date on them is June 8, 07.
I shudder to think of the many little children whose parents have bought these sausages to eat with their bread at mornings or their supper, or even to eat as snacks. I shudder to think that these monsters are out there making a ton load of money, while they are jeopardizing the health of the inhabitants of the country.
Many shoppers do not take time out to look at expiry dates. They are only interested in the cheapness of the commodity. It is not all cheap things, especially foodstuffs, which are good.
Only in third world countries this can happen. My investigations have revealed that many of our Supermarkets here contract agents abroad to ship down expired goods from these chain of Supermarkets here do, is to stamp the price of the commodity on the expiry date, thereby hiding it.
Those supermarkets abroad could be closed down by the authorities for displaying such foodstuffs in their shelves. They could also be sued by shoppers who could feign illness from eating these expired or condemned goods. We here in these small islands are only interested in the cheapness of the goods.
These Supermarkets are robbing us daily. Every day the goods are going higher and higher, sometimes as much as a dollar and cents. The Supermarkets here, get the goods for nothing, pay shipping and customs duties, and then extract their full pound of flesh from us by raising the price of these condemned and outdated goods, and, in the process, imperilling our lives.
When the big corporations produce goods which would not be passed by the FDA, or if they are condemned by the FDA, they are sent to the third world countries to be used by us, to introduce all kinds of cancers in our systems. We must not be greedy and look at the cheapness of the stuff; we have to find out what consequences they will impose upon us.
Who knows how many other shoddy goods our business people are importing in order to make huge profits, at the expense of our health? I would not say that all Supermarkets practise this deceit, but I know of many which have set out to deceive the buying public.
Some of them, instead of discarding the foodstuff when they have expired, reduce the price, in order to entice an unsuspected shopper or shoppers to just look at the cheapness rather than the expiry date, which could cause havoc to their family and themselves and cause them to spend more money, seeking medical attention and even hospitalization, because of trying to save a few cents on an inferior commodity.
When the Management and Staff could go to the trouble of tearing off the expiry date from a commodity which has expired some five months ago, that Manager should be dealt with by the legal authorities.
The Turkey Sausage look sickly and that is what it would do to shoppers who purchase it. I hope that the Heath Department would go around to these Supermarkets and check on the goods they offer the public. The Health Department should be interested in the health of the Federation. Watch what you buy at the Supermarkets. If there is no expiry date on the item; do not buy it.
