A SUPERMARKET has held its hands up after selling out-of-date baby food to a family TWICE .

Dave Smith and his wife, from Colchester, bought Little Dish Soup for his one-year-old granddaughter from Asda in Turner Rise.

Once he got home he discovered it was a day out of date, luckily before feeding any to his granddaughter.

The same thing had happened at the end of June, when Mr Smith bought the same baby food and fed a couple of mouthfuls to his granddaughter.

The food on that occasion had been 12 days out of date.

Asda said the first complaint was being taken seriously and an investigation was taking place.

Mr Smith and his wife had spent the night awake with their granddaughter after speaking to the Asda pharmacist, worrying she would become ill.

Thinking the situation had been dealt with, he went back to the store to buy more baby food, but the same thing has happened.

Mr Smith said: “What worries me is, fortunately this time nothing was eaten as my daughter now checks the dates, but other children in Colchester are eating out-of-date food that might be harmful to them.

“I think it’s incompetent - what’s the luck of it happening to the same person in a matter of weeks?

“The only good thing I would say is they didn’t make any excuses, they held their hands up.”

He felt an alert needed to be put out for parents in Colchester to check the dates on baby food before they buy them.

He said what worried him most was the genuine fear that other children could become seriously ill.

He called the store manager as well as head office to complain, in shock that it had happened to them again following the investigation by the store.

The family has not claimed compensation, nor will be, as they said it was simply to warn others of the dangers. 

He said: “We were furious as the quality control is disgusting.

“If this is happening whilst they are investigating, what was it like before?”

An Asda spokesman said: “I am truly sorry we have let Mr Smith down in this way and can confirm that we are carrying out a full investigation.

“We have policies in store to prevent out of date products being on sale.

“Unfortunately on this occasion this product was missed during one of these checks.

“The store has re-checked the area and I can reassure our customers that all of our products are in date.”