Mother's shock at out-of-date baby milk in Tesco

Local & National

Mother shocked at
out-of-date baby milk
Baby Thomas had stomach pains after drinking the out-of-date baby milk

Friday, January 26, 2007

Victoria O'Hara

Retail giant Tesco has apologised to an Ulster mum after selling her out-of-date baby milk which she fed to her nine-month- old son.

Noreen Mulryan said she unknowingly gave her baby son Thomas the pre-made formula which she purchased this month from the Carrickfergus store - but it had expired in November 2006.

"I bought two cartons of the formula on January 12," she told the Belfast Telegraph.

" I would buy it regularly every week, just because it is so convenient. There is usually such a long expiration date on them that I didn't think to check it.

"I naturally assumed that because I only bought it days before, it would be OK."

Noreen said she noticed something was wrong when Thomas wouldn't finish the formula.

"Thomas took it and was drinking away, but then suddenly after a few minutes threw the bottle away," she said.

"I looked at it and the milk itself didn't look too different, but when I smelt it, it was awful. And when I checked the carton in the bin, the expiry date was November 16, 2006."

The Carrick mum claims Thomas experienced stomach pains after drinking the formula.

"It made him quite queasy for the rest of the night," she said.

"He woke up at 4am and was very unsettled. He seemed to have bad stomach pains as well as some diarrhoea. But luckily by the next morning he was fine."

Noreen said she contacted Tesco and met a representative from the Carrickfergus branch who apologised.

" She wanted to take the two cartons and receipt, and offered to give me a case of baby milk and a £10 gift voucher. But it isn't the money. It was the fact they had it there for sale in the first place. It was part of a bigger pack of 15 and I just lifted a number of them.

"There were other cartons on sale at the time so other people could have bought them and not realised they were out of date.

"I am just lucky Thomas is a hearty baby and was fine by the next day."

A Tesco spokesperson said: "We are concerned to hear about what happened and would like to apologise. We have strict stock control procedures to prevent this occurring so we'll review what happened here and also look to re-train if appropriate."