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PRS admits to selling expired food
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Stacks of expired food products are seen at one of the warehouses of PT Pandawa Rezeki Semesta in West Jakarta on March 21. (kompas.com/Rima Wahyuningrum)
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T Pandawa Rezeki Semesta (PRS), a distributor accused of selling expired food to retailers, admitted to police on Wednesday that it had changed the expiration date on their products to avoid losses.
The West Jakarta-based company, which was established in 2014, was allegedly earning up to Rp 6 billion (US$436,200) per month selling expired food.
According to West Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Hengki Haryadi, it had imported its products legally.
“It took some time for the imported products to arrive [in Indonesia]. The company changed the [expiration] dates on packages not only by months, but by years,” Hengki said as quoted by kompas.com.
The dates were altered at PRS’ warehouse in Tambora, West Jakarta.
Products stored in the company’s Cengkareng warehouse, also in West Jakarta, were ready to be distributed to retailers across Indonesia, Hengki added.
Head of the West Jakarta Police’s special crimes unit 2, First Insp. Steven Chang, said the items, which ranged from milk to instant popcorn, had varying expiration dates.
“Some had four or six months left [on their expiration date] when they arrived. The company extended the dates and offered the products to retailers accompanied by a letter from the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency [BPOM],” Steven said, adding that retailers still accepted products with a minimum of eight months left until its sell-by date.
Police are currently working to ascertain the exact number of retailers that had accepted products from PRS, and questioning the company’s employees for further information. (jlm)
