KELOWNA – Customers at Valoroso Foods in Kelowna were being turned away Monday as the Italian specialty food store and deli conducts an internal inventory review. The review started Sunday. Owners say they are throwing out all outdated products from their two Okanagan locations as well as their warehouses.
“When this inventory is finished we will be giving full report to everybody but as we speak it’s all we can say because it’s not done yet, “ said Valoroso owner Joe Valoroso on Sunday when the review began.
On Monday, no one from Valoroso Foods would speak on camera. However, the company did issue an e-mail statement to Global Okanagan.
“We will keep you updated on our current efforts. When we learned of the concern of the freshness of our products, we immediately closed all open orders with wholesale customers and stopped shipments. For the past two days, we have been implementing new inventory tracking software,” reads the statement.
The inventory review started after serious allegations were made of best before dates and expired dates being tampered with. The allegations were first brought to light by Global Okanagan. A former employee documented the practice using a hidden camera Global supplied him. Since then, a number of former Valoroso staffers have stepped forward to confirm the allegations. However, they’re not the only ones.
“Literally my phone erupted with a whole pile of local chefs calling me and texting me saying finally. It was a sense of relief for everyone”, says a local chef.
The chef, who wants to remain anonymous because he fears reprisals from other chefs. He claims many of those other Okanagan chefs were aware of the alleged label tampering for years.
“We had a four year old olive oil come in and I talked to them about the best before date and they always mentioned to me it was a best before date not a bad after date,” he says.
With Valoroso supplying a number of local restaurants, the chef says the impact isn’t just limited to people who shop at the store directly.
“A lot of the high end restaurants you are eating in these days even to your ma and pop pub are ordering from these people,” he says.
Despite Joe Valoroso denying any knowledge of label tampering, the chef says he’s had numerous talks about his concerns with Valoroso himself.
“I’ve had many heated discussions with the owners down there about expired products,” he says.
It’s expected the inventory review will wrap up sometime Monday and the store re-opens to the public on Tuesday.
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