BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Authorities seized 300 kilos of “hot meat” from a store at the Libertad Market here.
Edward Martin Pinaga, head of the city government’s Task Force Botagoy (TFB), said they were conducting a routine inspection on Monday when they found expired meat in the store’s freezer.
Based on the product records, the confiscated meat was processed in 2018 and expired in September 2020 yet. This was not displayed for sale in the meat section, Pinaga said.
“Hot meat” means carcass or parts of a carcass of food animals that were slaughtered by unaccredited meat establishments. This raises the possibility that the meat being sold may potentially be unsafe or spoiled.
According to Pinaga, the product was delivered by supplier G-fresh, but it was never recalled from the store.
They tried to coordinate with the supplier, however, they found that it did not have any office, nor contact person.
Pinaga said they documented the operation and have since destroyed the expired meat products at the AVM Bernardo slaughter house.
On Saturday, TFB also confiscated 300 kilos of expired meat at a supermarket in Barangay Mansilingan.
The meat products also expired in September, although it was never displayed and just kept in storage by the seller.
With the holiday season drawing near, TFB stepped its monitoring in the city’s markets to curb the selling of expired meat products./PN
