I.P. Freleigh's Funky Food FUBAR!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

So the past couple of nights we've been rearranging the entire grocery department, because with this dumb-ass walk-in clinic being installed in my store soon, we have to move all kinds of merchandise to open up the areas the contractors will need to work in.

Basically, everything gets moved over an aisle, or to the opposite side of an aisle.

As we've been doing this, we've been checking the expiration dates on all the products. This is supposed to be the HBA/Grocery specialist's job, but since she is generally a lazy slug this does not get done. And, to be fair, we third-shifters are partially to blame, because we generally don't rotate product when filling, but that may be because we don't have a big crew and need to work fast and don't take the time to rotate product.

Over the past two nights, we've filled up 5 shopping carts with product that is past its expiration date. Tonight I found two bags of peanuts that expired in November--of last year. That's going to be a few hundred dollars of shrink against our store.

I've hereby decided to be very cautious when buying any foodstuffs from my store.

[Misanthropical]

I'm always very careful to check expiration dates since I bought bread that was moldy and a month past due.

I have gone to buy ice tea in the jugs and found they expired the month before.

I bought some chocolate last month and opened it up to eat it and it had turned white from age.

[Ree]

I bought some chocolate last month and opened it up to eat it and it had turned white from age.

Actually, Mis, not to discount that the chocolate you bought was probably old, but chocolate can go white simply by being heated and cooled again.

Earlier this summer, we got a shipment of brand new chocolate bars. The boxes had really good expiry codes on them, but the chocolate apparently got too hot on the truck, and when it came into our air-conditioned store, it cooled again, bringing all the cocoa butter to the surface.

It's still safe to eat, but it just looks bad.

The company, Cadbury, was pretty good and they replaced all of it for us.

Also, Irving Patrick, I understand that you guys on third shift are busy, but if you aren't taking the time to rotate perishable stock properly, then you aren't doing your job properly, so why bother doing it at all?

That's like a painter hired to do a job, and only touching up the surfaces that are directly visible to people.

Sorry, but I have a real pet peeve in that area. I have to write up too much expired stuff in my job because someone has used the same excuse, that they didn't have enough help, and didn't have time, and so they have not rotated items with a shelf life.

When a store has to take a loss on expired stuff, it affects us where it hurts. Profit losses mean job losses and cutbacks.

[Rapscallion]

Yup to the white chocolate. It's called bloom, and after researching this for work, I found out that chocolate can crystalise in six different ways based on the conditions etc. Only two of these are what the choclatiers need.

Perfectly safe to eat - just doesn't look as good.

Rapscallion

[Cedophile]

Yes your story makes me think I should start checking more exp dates. I'm sick as a dog right now and I'm going to blame a strangely dried out chunk of fish in a rice ball.

I'd best stop thinking about this, though, because I'm just making myself more queasy...


me live

[Misanthropical]

I knew the chocolate was old, because I opened it and took a bite without looking and it tasted NASTY! I'm big on chocolate, so I know my chocolate should taste like pure heaven, so I looked at it and it was white and the expiration date had passed.

The store did an exchange for me after we checked the expiration dates on other chocolate on the shelf.

[MadMike]

Interesting -- back when I still hunted, I found a candy bar from the previous year in one of the pockets of my hunting jacket. It looked just fine, and tasted just fine, even though it was roughly a year old.

I'd hate to think how old the chocolate that you had was.

[Rahmota]

madMike I can go you one better.

I was cleanign out the storm shelter and found in the back, sealed in a box that had fallen behind some stuff a pack of hershey bars that where 3 years old. Being a registered chocoholic I of course tried one and it (as well as the other 2) where still good enough to eat. Just a little stale is all.

[powerboy]

I am always checking the dates, on when I buy food and drinks

[AFpheonix]

I used to bring to the attention of the store manager crap that was WAAAAY past it's prime if I found it out on the shelf when grabbing OTC stuff to fill prescriptions with or when customers brought it up.

He shrugged it off and snarkily asked me if I wanted to make it my responsibility to pull outdates on the floor. I responded that I already handled that in my section, and it had already been done 3 months out, thankyouverymuch. Not to mention I had the schedule done 6 weeks out, and everything else done that I get handled.

Sorry, but that's what floor people are there for. I handle the prescription stuff, they handle the OTC stuff. That's how it rolls.

[SuperDan]

Our managers always drill into us the importance of rotation, and without fail nobody ever rotates in my store. It's not uncommon to find things on the shelf that expired in May... of 2003. It's also not uncommon to catch night crew taking already out-of-date merchandise from the backroom and stocking it to the shelf.

Once I pulled almost a case of Strawberry Frosted Mini-Wheats off of the shelf because it was three days out of date. I put it with the rest of the unprocessed damaged. I came in the next day and found that it had been pulled out of damaged and re-stocked. I asked the receiver (who is in charge of processing damaged for return) and asked if she had sent that back out to the floor (there is alot of stuff that gets back there that shouldn't be, so that's not unusual, maybe she didn't notice the date) but she said no. Somebody from night crew went into the unprocessed damaged, pulled out a case of out-of-date cereal, and stocked it to the shelf. Morons.

[Becks]

I TRY to check the expiration dates on items I buy, but what can I do when it's all in that funky code? I don't have the key for it!!!!

[Primer]

Y'all are bringing back so many memories to me today...

Back in 1982, I was a cashier at a brand new location of one of our local grocery chains. Stuff was still being stocked for the first time, even as we opened. I don't know how many times people would ask me if the date on the package was the expiration date, or the manufactured date. I had to be honest with the customer... The NEW store was being stocked with expired food! And the managers refused to pull any of it.