Food past use-by date and mouse droppings found in takeaway with litany of hygiene failures
A takeaway caught with open food more than two weeks beyond its use-by date - and droppings underneath a machine - has appeared in court, along with its owner.
Pars Pizza Brierley Hill Limited, and owner Ameet Kulkarni, had previously admitted six hygiene failures and four health and safety offences, and returned to Dudley Magistrates Court for sentencing on Monday.
The court heard how environmental health officers found several contraventions of hygiene regulations during a routine inspection of the takeaway on Brierley Hill High Street on September 8 2022.
Chief of these was the discovery of an open tub of double cream with a use-by date of August 21 2022, and other food being exposed to contamination due to being stored incorrectly.
Other issues included mouse droppings found under a planetary mixer. Although there was no sign of a rodent infestation, prosecutor Saima Ahmed-Aziz said it had been remarked that the droppings "must have come when the machine was delivered", indicating the area in and around the mixer had "not been cleaned since it had arrived".
