The fine was handed down by Barnsley Magistrates Court, which ordered the supermarket chain to pay £507,767 in fines and costs after pleading guilty to five offences under the Food Safety Act.
The breaches in question corresponded to staff repeatedly displaying out-of-date food items at the grocer’s Old Mill Lane store in Barnsley, Yorkshire.
In its defence, Asda claimed that the offences took place in 2024, when it used a different date code checking process.
“We’re committed to keeping our communities safe, a responsibility we take very seriously,” said Cllr Wendy Cain, Barnsley Council’s public health spokesperson.
“We expect businesses of all sizes to only sell safe food, and this significant result sends a clear message that we will always put people’s health and safety first, taking action where businesses fail to comply with legislation or respond to warnings.”
An updated process was introduced in November 2024, which involves daily manual checks on all short-life products, as well as twice-weekly checks on every-long life product.
According to Barnsley Council’s Trading Standards team, a series of visits revealed that some products were displayed despite being two weeks past their expiry date.
The prosecution was brought after the store failed to act upon repeated warnings handed out by the Trading Standards team following several visits.
A spokesperson for Barnsley Trading Standards added: “While improvements have been made since these offences, including a new checking system, retraining and increased auditing in the store, the sizeable £100,000 fine per offence sends a clear message that non-compliance never pays.”
During a shocking March 2024 visit, investigators found 32 out-of-date food items for sale, forming part of 11 different chilled products and totalling 581 days past their use-by date.
Pizzas, curries and tubs of hummus were among the offending items found by the team – all of which were removed from sale and seized.
Responding to the fine, an Asda spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that some out-of-date products were found on sale at our Barnsley store in 2024. This fell short of the standards our customers rightly expect and that we hold ourselves to.
“In the time since these products were found, we have introduced a new date code checking process in every Asda store to ensure the freshest products are always available for customers to buy.”
