Five week old baby in hospital after shop sold formula nine years out of date

A newborn baby ended up in hospital after its dad gave formula he didn’t realise was nearly a decade out of date.

The five-week-old ended up in hospital after being fed Aptamil that went out of date in June 2019.

The formula was bought at a branch of Dunnes Stores in Navan, Republic of Ireland, last February.

Two days later, the father was feeding the baby and was concerned when they became sick and refused to drink any more.

Noticing discolouration in the bottle, he checked the packaging and noticed it was nine years out of date.

Another bottle they bought at the same time had a best before date of February 3 of last year, meaning it was five days out of date.

The baby was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda where it was kept overnight under observation, but didn’t require any treatment.

Doctors concatced the shop and environmental health and eight more bottles with short best before dates were removed from the shelves.

A doctor contacted the Navan branch of Dunnes Stores to make them aware of the incident, and on February 14 a senior environmental health officer spoke to the shop’s deputy store manager.

The incident only came to light on Friday when Dunnes Stores admitted one count of failing to report that a food it had put on sale could be a dangerous.

Brian Gageby BL, defending, said it was an unusual case and a ‘mystery’ to his clients of how the lone bottle of infant formula had been on the shelf for nearly a decade.

Regular three-month stock takes were carried out on baby food, where products with a shelf life shorter than four weeks would be removed.

Dunnes Stores had taken the matter extremely seriously, counsel said, and stock checks on baby food products now take place monthly.

He said that the HSE and FSAI should have been informed immediately, but the case ‘fell through the cracks’.

Mr Gageby said his client has no previous convictions and has 118 stores in the Republic of Ireland, employing around 17,000 people.

Dunnes Stores agreed to pay costs, including over €8,000 in legal costs and more than €23,000 in investigation fees.

The company secretary, Tom Sheridan, was in court and Mr Gageby said they were prepared to make a sizeable contribution to charity.

Judge Eirinn McKiernan ordered Dunnes Stores to make a payment of €10,000 (£8,450) split between Barnardos, Foróige, and MCDAR.

The case will appear in court again in four weeks, to ensure the donation and costs have been paid.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.