The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) on Thursday sealed 4U supermarket located at Ademola Adetokunbo crescent, Wuse 2 Abuja, over the concealing of bags of rice filled with weevils, expired drugs, drinks and products in the branch.
The seal off followed deceptive actions by management of the supermarket to hide the affected rice at it headquarters.
Blueprint reports that some of the staff of the supermarket was caught pulling off the expired dates of some of the products in the supermarket.
During the operation, FCCPC officials also evacuated about 94 bags of rice in the two branches of supermarket at Wuse 2 in Abuja.
The affected products are 5kg and 10kg of Caprice and Royal stallion rice which were produced in August 2022 and October 2022 respectively and are expected to expire in 2027.
The price displayed on the weevil laden 10kg bags of rice cost N19,000 each.
The acting Executive Vice Chairman FCCPC, Adamu Ahmed Abudullahi, who led the raid said caprice and stallion rice were still stocked and being sold in the supermarket years after the companies have stopped production.
He frowned at the “obnoxious practices” being undertaken by management of the supermarket, noting that the integrity of products being sold at 4U supermarket could no longer be guaranteed thereby exposing consumers to unsafe products.
He said, “this is in continuation of our efforts to ensure that prices in the market reflects what is displayed.
“Nowadays, we have found out that there is a lot of pretense in what’s happening especially in markets around the major cities in the country.
“You go to the shelf, the product displayed is different from what appears when you come to pay at the counter, which is not acceptable, because you are frisking consumers, and some of the buyers don’t even have prices attached to them at all.
“So, it would show that the practice should no longer continue. In addition, we found out another thing that really baffles us. Nobody knows that Stallion group has stopped production for a very long time.
“What is happening is that some people re-bag their own local rice pretending that it is the same stallion or papa that people are used to.”
He assured that they will get to the root of who the producers are and will sanction appropriately.
He said they have the full support of the government of the Federation, Minister of Industry, Trade and investment and they they will make sure the food prices and indeed commodity prices come down in the country.
The General manager of the Supermarket, Yunusa A. Yusuf, said the suppliers recently got to know the company are longer in existence.
He said they are planning to expose the supplier who brought the bags of rice to them.