'Fresh food' giant Woolworths in Murray Bridge fined $7500 for selling out-of-date food Woolworths has pleaded guilty to two counts of selling food in its Murray Bridge store past its use-by date. WOOLWORTHS - "the fresh food people" - have been fined $7500 for selling food past its use-by date in Murray Bridge. Woolworths today pleaded guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court to two counts of selling food past its use-by date in May last year. The company sold two packets of Emily's Kitchen Asian Style Mongolian Lamb with Rice which were 13 and 14 days respectively past the use-by date. Woolworths was prosecuted by the Rural City of Murray Bridge. It chose not to expiate the matter, which would have resulted in a $2500 fine for the supermarket, and instead decided to take the matter to court. Magistrate Peter Wilson today said the negative publicity for Woolworths would cause the company "enormous embarrassment." This would be worse than if he fined the company $20,000, which would be "a drop in the bucket" for the supermarket giant, he said. Woolworths had performed tests on the product 14 days after its use-by date and found there was no health risk and the consumer reported no ill effects from eating the lamb and rice meal. Since the incident last year, Woolworths Murray Bridge has retrained its deli staff and now performs more spot checks of its products.