Joe Valoroso and his staff went through everything. They did a full inventory review following our report that some employees were allegedly changing best before and expiry labels on a wide range of products including pasta, cheese and meats.
He says they collected about a pallet’s worth of goods during their inventory that should not have been on the shelves.
“We found some short dated product,” says Valoroso. “Shortdated, like one month’s expiry date or best before. Or some stuff that had no dates at all but they have a lot number which you can track down and find out exactly when it was manufactured.”
Valoroso says they also found some goods at the back of the store.
“We found some stuff back there in the warehouse which was hidden and unfortunately things like that happen.”
According to Interior Health, that stuff at the back of the warehouse was “severely damaged food cans”. Valoroso says those cans were destined for the garbage bin.
Sysco’s local operating company says it first became aware of the situation on Friday morning, March 20. In a statement a spokesperson says they “immediately stopped sale of the small assortment of Valorosa products we distributed. We have ceased any further product purchases from Valorosa at this time.”
IHA says it conducted an inspection of Valoroso Foods last Friday following our report of label tampering. It found 10 infractions including the damaged cans. IHA does not deal with label tampering. That’s the Canadian Food Inspection agency’s job. But the IHA does have an obligation to report to the CFIA on any questionable labels. No reports were forwarded to the CFIA in the last inspection.
Since breaking the story, several former Valoroso employees have contacted Global News, saying they were ordered by Joe Valoroso himself to change labels.
Valoroso denies the accusation, except for one product — Mascapone cheese, the same cheese an employee was seen changing the label on. The footage was caught on our hidden camera.
Last week, we showed Valoroso the hidden camera footage dealing with the cheese. At the time, he didn’t know what it was. Valoroso says he’s identified the cheese, and now admits to ordering the label change only because the original label was fading. He insist the Valoroso label was restored to the original date.
Meantime, Valoroso admits he has to rebuild the trust he’s lost with some of his customers and that it will be up to them on whether to come back to Valoroso foods.
“If customers believe is us they will come back.”
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