Warns After Buying Expired Dairy as Liberia Battles Cheap, Expired Goods
Liberia—Tebeh carried a metal tray filled with neatly stacked yogurt, doughnuts, and other snacks for her kids. She believed she had found the best products after driving from her residence in Monrovia to the Saksouk supermarket on ELWA Road in Paynesville City, but now she has regrets. Some of the products she purchased had maggots in them.
She is now demanding urgent action from health authorities after unknowingly feeding her baby with an infested yogurt she picked from the supermarket shelves earlier. She is describing her experience as one of the troubling cases of expired food products still circulating in the Liberian market.
“I bought two pieces of yogurt and put them in the fridge; when I told my son to feed his little sister the next day, he said, 'Mama, she does not want to eat,' so I told him, ' Okay, you can eat it.”
“There was a remaining one and I myself decided to feed him with it, when I fed him, I noticed that he made a face but didn’t take notice until he made another face after I fed him for the second time, at this point, I said, " Let me empty the yoghurt, when I emptied it, that is when I noticed that the yoghurt had maggots.”
“I felt really disappointed in myself as a mother. I started to ask myself why I didn’t empty the yogurt before feeding him, but at this point, it had happened, so I gave thanks to God.”
Tebeh said she took the yoghurt at the supermarket, but one of the staff told her that the incident was caused by the factory or, rather, the packaging.
“I can’t tell why the Yogurt has maggots; it is a factory fault, it is not us," a senior staff member responded angrily when asked by a Stage Media reporter
According to Tebeh, the supermarket contemplated apologizing to her when she threatened that she was reporting them to the Ministry of Commerce.
Expired Product on Sale
Tebeh’s account to this reporter showed that the product had expired but remained on the supermarkets’ shelves on sale to unsuspecting customers, highlighting major concerns about food safety enforcement across Monrovia's retail establishments.
Expired dairy products pose serious health hazards to society and leave newborns and young children the most vulnerable.
Calls for Regulatory Intervention
The urgency of this situation continues to pique the interest of the Ministry of Commerce, the National Food Agency, and the Liberia Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority, which regulates food and pharmaceutical items, as well as the Ministry of Health.
However, public health activists argue that the event highlights systemic inadequacies in monitoring and enforcement.
"This is more than simply one business." It raises broader concerns about how expired products continue to make their way onto store shelves," said James Sonkan, a local consumer rights campaigner.
Growing Consumer Concerns
Residents in Monrovia have increasingly complained about the sale of expired and improperly preserved food, particularly in community shops where state checks are irregular.
"We trust these stores to sell safe food, especially to children….I beg the authorities to take this seriously before something worse happens," said Tebeh.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry Inspector General has yet to respond to queries by Stage Media after messages were sent in April and May 2026.
However, the recent cases of unwholesome products are likely to increase public pressure on authorities to tighten routine market surveillance for expired consumables and enforce food safety regulations.
In Grand Bassa County, a senior commerce inspector shut down multiple shops on Friday for selling expired food and consumer products, including H. Nasser Supermarket.
Senior Commerce Inspector Kennedy Kardyuway described the situation as a "persistent and intentional violation," which resulted in the confiscation of a substantial number of expired commodities from the supermarket's shelves and storage facilities. According to Kiadyuway, the establishment has been cited for similar infractions before.
"This is not an isolated incident…the supermarket has been caught committing this behavior more than twice.”
"Such repeated violations indicate a deliberate disregard for consumer safety and public health standards, He added. "
Yet, the enforcement action has sparked widespread worry among residents, many of whom rely on the supermarket as their primary source of home products. Authorities warn that selling expired products presents serious health hazards and undermines regulatory compliance efforts throughout the country.
On March 23, expired goods were found at Marshall Shopping Center, and Commerce Inspector General Miantor Gbatu shut the entity down for a couple of days and fined them US$1000 in line with established laws, according to the Commerce official.
Gbatu claimed that the expired goods will be disposed of. Something we can not verify.
In Bong, several expired goods were confiscated, including a quantity of expired and unwholesome goods from several business establishments across the county, by the Commerce Inspector.
In Nimba, at the Caroline Frozen Food Center, several frozen foods were declared unsafe for public consumption.
Aside from TeBeh's yogurt incident, Red Light is one of Paynesville's main shopping areas, with hundreds of vendors selling everything from sardines to mayonnaise and butter, milk, flour, and biscuits. Most food items are inexpensive, with prices starting at 100 LD (55 cents).
On April 29, it is almost dark, and her repetitive call entices hungry consumers who are passing through the central market on foot. Some people come to buy a handful of the palm-sized doughnuts she fried at daybreak.
Cooper, who declined to give her first name since she has been buying and using expired supplies to create doughnuts for the past eight months, claims the expired flour she uses makes her business viable.
She claims that now and again, the goods she purchases are clearly bad. "Sometimes, as I open a bag, a few dark specks [of discolored flour] and an incredibly foul smell greet me," she said of the expired food she frequently purchases. Pointing to one of such products, she told this reporter that “this bag of flour expired in late 2025.”
Despite the clear expiration date, she claims she chose to use it because she could not afford to purchase another bag.
A 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of unexpired flour costs $35, but when expired, it costs $20.50.
In Zwedru, a place renowned for its isolation and the high cost of imported goods, expired goods are rarely thrown away. When food items and cosmetics are months or even years past their expiration dates, market vendors simply drop their prices to entice customers who want the lower prices.
Although it may be financially advantageous for certain clients, the health implications cannot be ignored. When it comes to the distribution and sale of expired goods within the city, local officials are held responsible.
One of the marketplaces that depends significantly on import trade between Liberia and the Ivory Coast is Zwedru City.
Liberia's major imports in 2024 were passenger and cargo ships ($16.7 billion), refined petroleum ($3.06 billion), and machinery parts excluding electrical connectors, insulators, coils, contacts, and other electrical features not defined or included elsewhere in this Chapter. ($399 million), Iron Structures ($250 million) and Rice ($147 million). The leading origins were China ($13.1 billion), South Korea ($5.22 billion), Japan ($1.67 billion), Brazil ($458 million), and Germany ($444 million).
According to the Central Bank of Liberia, imports grew to 236.58 million USD in December, up from 216.94 million USD in November 2025. From 2003 to 2025, imports in Liberia averaged 90.78 USD million, with an all-time high of 341.68 USD million in December 2023 and a record low of 3.40 USD million in August 2003.
The government agency in charge of trade standards and conformity assessments for the nation's imports and exports is the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI). It also has the authority to stop the distribution of expired goods in Zwedru.
Market vendors, department shop owners, and wholesalers must discard their products once the manufacturer's expiration date on the box has passed because MOCI prohibits the sale of any expired goods.
However, a lot of business owners contend that it is impractical to discard outdated goods. In actuality, expiring goods are the best sellers because cheaper costs draw in more customers.
Nonetheless, the popular trade persists for the merchants who are not caught.
Cooper is a widowed mother of seven whose weekly sales bring in less than L$30,000 ($60). She purchases sugar, eggs, powdered milk, and a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of flour—which is typically expired—with around 20% of her weekly earnings from the market.
Cooper claims that because her business depends on inexpensive, expired goods, she has enough money left over after purchasing to care for her kids.
But she points out that using out-of-date flour could make the doughnuts taste rancid and salty, which would make the dough less elastic. Cooper goes on to say that despite some consumers' complaints about the odd taste, sales of the snack are steady because of its inexpensive pricing.
Expired items are a crucial component of earning a livelihood as a seller here, according to Mulbah, whose first name has been withheld out of fear of being detained by the MoCI for selling expired tins of sardines in the market center.
It is unreasonable, according to many business owners, to discard expired products in these counties.
Clinician Serena Ali urges individuals to refrain from routinely ingesting out-of-date food items despite the cost and appeal. According to her, the longer expired goods are kept on the shelf, the more poisonous they become.
According to her, "women who come here usually complain of itchy skin due to the use of some expired cosmetics."
Humphrey Taylor, Regulatory Affairs Pharmacist at Liberia's Medical Health Regulatory Authority (LMHRA), says after the product has expired, its potency is lost.
He identified some of the risks associated with beauty goods, such as skin cancer and rashes that may develop after using the product.
"When an expired product is applied, instead of helping it, it will cause skin irritation, and some reactions will be immediately noted, but others will take time to react on the body," Taylor explained.
However, he claims that internet vendors of expired items are difficult to hold accountable. "Even though the LMHRA has a cosmetic department, one of our challenges is tracking online sellers."
Nevertheless, there are other popular expired items here besides food. Body treatments, toothpaste, and cosmetics that have expired are also offered at reduced prices.
"To crack down on informal sellers, specifically those who falsify expired products/goods, is a nightmare that we have, and we hope that we tackle this in the time to come," he stated.
Dr. Bernice Sow reports that she sees multiple patients with skin irritations caused by expired products.
Despite the popularity of expired products, there is still a market for purchasing and selling fresh goods.
"I cannot in any way buy such [expired] products, even if, as luck would have it, they sell for as little as L$50 (less than 1 cent)," explains Joana Slangar, a mother of two. "I can't run the risk of killing myself or my family."
Some shop owners and market vendors refuse to sell expired products, no matter how profitable they may be. This means that Siah Paye, the proprietor of a tiny convenience store, makes fewer sales than vendors who sell outdated goods.
"We're way over our heads with the situation," Siah says of the distribution and sale of expired items. “True, some products available on the market have yet to go past their expiration date, but the MOCI lets traders bring them into cities, knowing full well that their expiration date is approaching.”
Paye claims she has seen some shop owners bribe MoCI authorities to allow them to transport expired items into the city, which we cannot verify.
The Liberia Standards Authority (LiSA) was contacted; Stephen Mambu, Director General, said the institution was not in the position to provide any statistics to support our report.
"I would advise that you get in touch with the Inspector General at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. They do a lot of general market inspection, focusing on expired products," Mambu said.
He says LiSA does not test expired products in the first place. They should not be there. "However, LiSA has just been operationalized and is still setting into place basic services and programs. A program of particular interest that will likely provide some level of information on this subject matter in the future is our monitoring and surveillance program."
Mambu added that the expected program will cover high-risk products in Liberia and will gather market intelligence on products for consumer protection and strengthen the regulatory framework.
"We are hoping that in the fourth quarter of this year, it will be rolled out. It will cover major markets throughout the country and its borders. It will also have coverage for food and nonfood products."
According to him, LiSA does not have proper stats on expired food products, which will not be very feasible since food monitoring programs among responsible government agencies are still fragmented and reactionary and are based on complaints.
When the Commerce Inspector General Gbatu responds to our inquiries, this article will be updated.
