WATCH: War declared against ‘my friend’ spaza shops selling expired products

A war has been declared on foreign national shop owners in townships selling expired products.

A handful of community members have taken a stand and targeted a shop run by foreign nationals to rid the store of old and expired items.

In a video, a woman alongside a handful of people demand the store owned by “my friend”, a township term given to a group of mushrooming spaza shops in townships, dispose of the past-date products.

In a Facebook post, Mervin Andrew Willemse says: “We meant what we were saying that we will never tolerate these fake and expired foods sold by ‘MyFriend’ shops in our townships and locations, our people are slowly dying and no one seems to give a damn cause these health inspectors and politicians responsible overseeing this stay at nice estates where there is just Spur, Woolies and A grade PnP….this is also why there is such a huge loss in taxes cause these people do not pay tax. They have started a biological war with their fake and expired food and we are committed to stop this.”

The footage shows the inside of the store raided by the handful of community members demanding that all the expired items be disposed of immediately.

“Open it and throw it in the packet. It ends today,” the woman says.

Products from 2017 were allegedly found in the shop, and the woman in the video insists the products be opened and thrown away. This statement received resistance from one of the store operators, but the woman insisted the items must be opened and disposed of to ensure they do not end up back on the shelf.

The group raided the store and found baby food dated 2016. Products from 2017 were still on the shelf.

The footage was uploaded on Tuesday and has since gained momentum on social media.

A war has been declared on “my friend” by the group who claim people in communities are dying at the hands of expired products being sold in townships by people who do not pay tax.

In July, the authenticity of most products sold by “my friend” were questioned.

In the videos, the quality of bread and two bottles of branded cold drinks have many on social media crying foul.

https://twitter.com/Katleho_Yeezy/status/1023201235531444225

In the first video, a woman questions the quality of bread she has had for longer than two weeks. The woman claims ‘Pakistanis’, another word referring to small shop owners in townships, sold her the loaf of white bread, which after more than two weeks has maintained its shape.

The woman goes on to say the bread remained intact despite the time and date difference.

“This bread I bought more than two weeks ago at a spaza shop, ‘my friend’s spazas’. It’s still fresh, it’s still bouncy, there’s is no odour, there’s no mould, there’s nothing. It’s still as I bought it. It seems, what they do is they changed [the] packaging, and they buy [the] bread from wherever they buy it from, in bulk. They change [the packaging] every week and you think you’re buying fresh bread but clearly it’s not.”

The unnamed woman did a test on the “non-changing” bread. She immersed it in water for more than two hours. The bread, according to the woman, did not change or break apart. Instead, it was almost sponge-like.

She ends the footage saying “we are dying a slow death.”

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