Editor's note: This is a transcript of an interview on Friday afternoon's newscast.
Is your grocery store holding on to food long past the expiration date, or relabeling those items to save the company money? Investigative Reporter Mitch Blacher with the 10News I-Team tells us what some Albertson's employees told him.
BLACHER: Basically, financial motivation trumping product safety. That some of the managers at the stores would get bonuses if they sell more product. That their money were based on how few products they threw away. Some of these guys were telling us that there were old products being left on the shelves until they sold. Sometimes the meats were repackaged and re-dated in order to sell.
JOYCE: How many Albertson's are we talking about?
BLACHER: There were three in particular. One in La Jolla and one in Spring Valley. What we found was some expired products. We found some cans of expired products. Some cans of expired products and then we found perishable items like meats and milk. Albertsons was extremely upfront about this. They were very forthcoming and cooperative with the investigation.
JOYCE: Is this a problem they are looking into? Are these people going to be fired?
BLACHER: First of all, they say that this is a very small part of their business. When people have post dated products, they have been fired
Reporter Mitch Blacher with 10News I-Team, telling us about the practice of how expired food at some Albertson's grocery stores was re-labeled by managers seeking bonuses.
