A Reading shop owner will be forced to pay £8000 after he was charged for continually breaking food safety measures.
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The convenience store, Best Foods, on 129 Oxford Road, sells frozen and chilled food – it also has a halal butchers shop within the store. The shop, which is owned by Mr Yogarajah Rajmohan, was first inspected in March 2010 where a number of food safety violations were found, including, poor cleaning, lack of personal hygiene and a lack of hazard analysis system.
As a result of the inspection, hygiene improvement notices were served on the shop owner which required him to make the necessary improvements required by legislation and with the help of the Council he did so. However, the shop was visited a total of 9 times in 2010 and early 2011, and further food hygiene visits were carried out during the end of 2011 and 2012, where the same problems were found yet again.
Mr Rajmohan was charged at Reading Magistrates Court under the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006 for nine offences which occurred in 2011 and 2012. These included: failure to implement and maintain a hazard analysis procedure; failure to ensure that the premises was kept clean and maintained in good condition; Untidy outside bin storage area being potential harbourage for pests.
Mr Rajmohan will have to pay a £6300 fine to the court and £1700 costs to the Council.
Reading Borough Council’s Lead Councillor for Environment and Climate Change, Paul Gittings, said: “This shows the Council’s commitment to protecting consumers from rogue shop owners. The majority of shop owners in Reading meet the high standards of food safety, but this case shows that when owners fail to meet those standards, there is a price to pay.”
