Buying Expired Food

[Cam]

As you may know, I've worked in retail for the last seven years of my life, and one thing that has always been stressed is the importance of product rotation, checking expiration dates, and pulling merchandise that is expired. At CVS, we even have a third party company auditing us on this each month. There is no doubt that things slip through the cracks at times. We may fall behind checking dates, or we may even receive product from our distribution center that is already expired. We try our best though.

Anyways, I've written this post to talk about a gas station near my house. I ordered a Hunt Brothers Pizza from there yesterday, and naturally the pizza was ready when I was told it would be ready. So I just wandered around the store looking to see if might buy a snack or a drink. I immediately noticed that a large portion of their food products were covered in dust. That happens, but this was bad to the point of where it looked like this place was a saw mill or something. I randomly checked dates on all sorts of different items while I was waiting, and literally everything I looked at was expired, or it was way past the "Best By" date, which apparently doesn't actually mean that it's expired. Still very iffy though.

Here's America's favorite gas station pizza company:



The craziest thing is that I found three different flavors of Stride gum. Does anyone know what that is? It used to be really trendy when I was in middle school, and I swear that every cool kid had Stride. For some reason, we thought it made sense to chew this gum with the wrapper still on. Anyways, you can't find Stride gum just anywhere anymore, as they seem to have stopped producing it. So I looked at the dates of them, and all of them had "Best By" dates that were in 2017. Gum has a pretty good shelf life, so there's no telling how old these things actually were. Isn't that insane? Made me very iffy on even eating the pizza I had ordered. No telling how old the crust/cheese/toppings/etc were, but it did end up tasting good. 😛

Here's a photo of the famous Stride gum:


So yeah, do you guys ever accidentally buy expired food?

 

[Ozzy47]

I have bought expired food before, usually when I’m in a rush in the store and don’t bother to look at the dates.

I actually check dates on my pets food more often than I do my own.

 

[Deleted member 7467]

Pizza buffets will spray water or oil to keep them looking fresh. Source: I used to work at a pizza buffet.

 

[Katrina]

I've accidentally bought expired yogurt...never again! There are some food products that I'm very strict about checking before making a purchase and others I don't think about checking because they're usually 2 years out to expire.

Where I live there is an Amish grocery store that has a claim to fame of selling expired and dented foods/goods. They're busy ALL THE TIME. You want Halloween candy? They got it! Christmas candy? It's there year round. Now of course their eggs are fresh because of all the Amish farms that supply them so I know that's safe to buy.

 

[Page]

It happens when I might or others pick up food ad the expired date is not far away and not able to get it finished before that date comes. But 100% of the time always check the date on everything, even at times I pick up items from the back of the shelves rather than in front.

Yet if the store staff do not do their job right, they stuck items in front and leave the older food in the back. Some items are alright if you freeze them 🙂 like bread and or other food that says best or after dates. I was brought up to check dates so bad to the point that people look at me wondering why I'm going through all the bread

Damn bad when you see food and items that are way past their dates and still being sold and whatnot, Gas stations are like that but should not be. We in the UK do not have bad servers stations,

 

[sprite1950]

I have but if I get it home and realise it has expired I will take it back. If it has the same day date and I'm not going to eat it that day I will freeze it. Having said that I do eat things that are slightly out of date in my fridge without any ill effects. As long as it smells and looks edible I don't mind and to date I have never had food poisoning. However, there are some things I would never touch that are out of date like chicken or shellfish.

I worked in a supermarket for years and the biggest problem with fresh food was people who filled the shelves didn't rotate properly which at quiet times of the week meant it was necessary to reduce a lot of food. Having said that people often go to the back of the shelves and pick the longer dates. I've done it myself.

 

[MrDawn]

I've accidentally bought expired milk because I carelessly didn't check the date. My grandmother has given full boxes of snacks, like oatmeal cream pies and crackers, that expired several years ago. So they didn't taste all that good I'm afraid.