38-year-old city councillor asked for ID to buy Baby Bio

It may be mostly seaweed — but that did not stop a supermarket declaring it dangerous and preventing a city councillor from buying it. Rob Hannaford said he was "left speechless" when asked for proof of age as he tried to buy a bottle of Baby Bio in Sainsbury's Exeter city centre store. Keen gardener Cllr Hannaford, who is 38, had his age checked by two employees in the supermarket's Guildhall Shopping Centre branch over his attempted purchase of the plant food for two houseplants he also wished to buy.

Baby Bio, mainly composed of seaweed, has been a stalwart of British plant lovers for years, and Cllr Hannaford is wondering what it has done to earn its "new risque reputation". He said he had been using a self-service till in the supermarket when it flashed up "age restricted" after he scanned the plant food. He said: "This seems crazy to me, as Baby Bio is a world famous house plant food that consists primarily of seaweed extract, so how can it be deemed to be a dangerous or restricted substance?



"My gran has been using it on her geraniums since it first came out and she's now in her mid 90s, and we have a large number of house plants, so it's always good to have some to hand. What do they think people are going to do with seaweed extract? What's next? Spot-checking people when they are buying potatoes in case they might be making vodka? Limiting people to one notepad at a time because of paper cuts? Yet again it seems as if the health and safety brigade is going over the top and leaving common sense behind."

A Sainsbury's spokesman said: "We flag up all age-restricted items centrally, although sometimes we make mistakes. We would like to apologise to this customer for the inconvenience, and we hope that he will continue to shop with us in future." A spokesman for Devon County Council trading standards suggested that the item could have been flagged restricted because of its potentially toxic content. He said: "There is a list of age-restricted items which retailers must adhere to — like fireworks, knives, petrol and spray paints — and it must be assumed that Baby Bio will fall into a restricted category."