04/12/2012
by Peppers and More
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WISBECH became the centre for a scam involving a Jamaican hot sauce, a court was told.Bosses at London based Wanis hired Eastern Country Foods in Smeeth Road, Marshland St James, to manufacture a speciality but fake sauce after it had lost the contract to import the original.
What bosses at Eastern didn’t know was that Wanis had devised its own recipe, created thousands of fake labels and over a 16-month period produced 30,000 counterfeit bottles of Pickapeppa sauce which it carried on selling into major supermarkets.
The scam only came to light when a shopper who bought the sauce from Asda complained that the sauce tasted sweeter than she was used to and she complained to Pickapeppa in Jamaica.
Brent and Harrow Trading Standards began a probe and the fake sauce trail led officers to the Leyton HQ of Wanis.
Three days into the trial at Harrow Crown Court Wanis bosses Sanjay Wadhwani, 45, and Vickas Shah, 34, changed their pleas and admitted breaking trademark laws. Each was given a community work sentence.
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