Carrefour fined after food checks

SUPERMARKET chain Carrefour has been fined €72,300 for a range of offences relating to its food.

The daily paper for the Paris area, Le Parisien reports that a court in the southern suburb Evry has fined the firm after trading standards inspectors discovered 2,500 instances of broken rules in seven shops in the Ile-de-France.

These included lack of traceability of beef, products whose weights did not match those shown on the labels, products on the shelves past their use-by dates and goods which should have been frozen being stored at room temperature.

Trading standards officials are also calling for a two million euro fine in relation to another matter heard in June in the same town. This related to various services Carrefour asks suppliers to pay for as part of the agreements made with them.

The officials said they were at a “manifestly disproportionate” price and included items of doubtful value to the suppliers, such as a generalised annual talk about the firm’s activities or supplying figures on sales in shops, which the officials said the suppliers could get more cheaply elsewhere. However no suppliers appeared in court to back the officials’ claims. The court is to make a ruling next month.