Tesco fined after rats ate cake

Food for delivery was being kept in an unprotected area, the council found

Supermarket giant Tesco has been fined after a chocolate birthday cake delivered to a house was found to have been partly eaten by rodents.

Cardiff council prosecuted the supermarket for selling food unfit for human consumption at its Tesco Extra store in Western Avenue, Cardiff.

Tesco Stores Ltd, which pleaded guilty to the offence, was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £8,000 costs.

Tesco apologised for the incident, calling it an "isolated case".

Cardiff council said a member of the public complained about a chocolate caterpillar birthday cake which was ordered for home delivery.

The cake had been partly eaten by rodents while awaiting dispatch from the home delivery warehouse at the store.

The council said an investigation by its food safety team showed that bags of non-chilled orders for home delivery were being kept in "an unprotected external part of the store despite store management being aware of ongoing rodent activity in the outside areas".

Both Tesco Stores Limited and management at the Western Avenue store were previously advised by council officers to stop storing pest-vulnerable foods externally.

A spokesman for Tesco said: "We are more than happy to apologise for what happened. This was an isolated case due to a temporary storage issue resulting in a lack of suitable storage area for some products.

"Steps were quickly taken so that it can and will never happen again."

The case was heard by Cardiff magistrates on Tuesday.