Administration with Lake Country Co-op stated the store should be fully restocked within two to three days. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

spoiled food

Refrigeration malfunction results in thousands of dollars of lost inventory

Mar 10, 2022 | 3:02 PM

The Lake Country Co-op Food Store in La Ronge is recovering from a refrigeration panel malfunction.

That’s according to an email sent to larongeNOW from a Lake Country spokesperson who stated staff have since successfully performed regular schedule maintenance and monitoring of the refrigeration system.

The freezer section was almost entirely empty on Thursday. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

“At this point in time, the cause of this malfunction is unknown,” the email noted. “This situation is considered to be a very rare occurrence.”

Refrigeration was down for about 15 hours, but it is back online and testing is being completed. The outage affected thousands of dollars worth of product such a milk, cheese, yogurt, meats, prepared foods and more.

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“Any spoiled, unconsumable food was properly disposed of as per Canadian Food Safety Standards,” the email added. “All safe food has been kept.”

The food store is back to regular hours, and although Co-op is experiencing some product shortages, the store should be fully restocked within two to three days.

The Co-op location is the largest grocery retailer in the tri-communities.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @saskjourno