A combined team of council and health inspectors have confiscated expired and unlabeled food products from Choppies Supermarket in Chipata.
Chipata City Council Public Relations Manager, Kameko Manda has confirmed to Breeze News.
Ms. Manda says that the food products were confiscated during the time, the health inspectors were conducting inspections on banned processed meat products from South Africa that are contaminated with Listeria bacteria.
She says that the council immediately obtained a court order to destroy all the expired and unlabeled food products that were confiscated from Choppies Supermarket.
Meanwhile Ms. Banda says during yesterday’s joint inspection process by the council and Ministry of health, it was discovered that most chain stores had already removed the banned products.
She further says that tests that were conducted on other South African meat products found that they were not contaminated.
A spot check by Breeze News this morning found that most chain stores have removed all South African imported meat and vegetable products while others have not.
And in response, Ms. Manda said the directive was not to remove all South African products but those that are from a manufacturing company which products had contaminated with Listeria bacteria.
Yesterday Provincial Permanent Secretary, Chanda Kasolo advised people to avoid all South African imported meat and vegetable products until investigations are concluded.