Asda has been fined £640,000 for selling dozens of out-of-date food at two of its supermarkets in Wales.

Trading Standards officers uncovered 115 expired items on display at the retailer’s Leckwith and Pentwyn branches in Cardiff, with some more than two weeks out of date.

Asda faced four charges relating to the sale of out-of-date products after food safety officers visited the Cardiff stores on four occasions in 2024, The Grocer reported.

An inspection of the Cardiff Gate store on 25 March 2024 uncovered 25 items out of date, while a second visit a month later found another 48 expired products on sale.

The first probe at Asda’s Leckwith store found 36 out-of-date items, while a second visit uncovered another six expired items.

Judge Charlotte Murphy imposed a fine of £640,000 plus costs of £15,115 and said: “Asda had systems in place, but those systems were not sufficiently adhered to or implemented.”

The retailer said the breaches were “clearly unacceptable” and claimed it had since introduced a new system that involves daily checks on all short-life products and twice-weekly checks on long-life products to ensure they are all in date.

An Asda spokesperson told Retail Gazette: “We regret that out-of-date food was found on sale at two of our Cardiff stores last year and accept that our usual high standards were not upheld.

“Since then, we have introduced a new date code checking process across all our stores, whereby every short-life product is checked daily so that customers can always buy the freshest products.”

It is the second time in three months that Asda has been fined hundreds of thousands of pounds for selling expired food.

The supermarket was hit with a fine exceeding £400,000 in April after two of its stores in Cornwall were discovered selling out-of-date food products.

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