The Save Mart Companies recently paid $1.6 million to settle a consumer protection case, Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez announced Friday.
The district attorneys of El Dorado, Marin, San Joaquin, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties in California alleged that the grocer violated state health and safety laws by having certain expired products for sale.
An investigation found that the grocery chain did not take off its shelves expired over-the-counter medications, baby food and infant formula that were past their “use by” dates since at least 2018, according to the district attorney’s office.
After Save Mart was alerted to the violations, the grocery chain “was cooperative and conducted internal checks [for those expired items] which were past the ‘use by’ date at all their California retail locations,” the press release said, noting that Save Mart prioritized verifying expiration dates and retraining workers. The investigation did not find evidence that the sale of expired products or ones past the “use by” date harmed consumers.
“The safety, freshness, and quality of the products we sell [are] of the utmost importance … We appreciate the opportunity to come to a resolution and refine and improve our processes,” Save Mart said in an emailed statement, noting that it “acted immediately” to audit all of its stores to remove expired products.
The grocery chain has implemented a rigorous review process to continually monitor expiration dates for these government-regulated code-dated products, Save Mart said in the statement.
To resolve the charge, Save Mart, without admitting or denying liability, agreed to pay $1.56 million in civil penalties and agreed to injunctive terms that prohibit more state law violations related to the sale or offer for sale of those types of expired products. The chain will also pay $40,000 in restitution to a trust that funds future consumer-related prosecutions.
“Consumers expect that the products they purchase at supermarkets are not expired, or beyond the ‘use by date’ provided by the manufacturer of the product,” Rodriguez said in a statement.
The Save Mart Companies runs nearly 200 stores under the Save Mart, Lucky and FoodMaxx banners in California and Nevada.
