Posted on 09/29/2013 7:44:38 AM PDT by Libloather
I don't think that's true. Almost none of the many variations of "sell by" or "best by" are required or regulated by the FDA -- they are entirely at the discretion of the manufacturer. The only one that is, is "expires on", and that's rarely on anything other than baby formula and baby food.
Ye Olde Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company.
WalMart donates their expired products to food pantries around the country. Our church distributes several bags of groceries to over 300 families a week. Thank you, WalMart and other grocery chains that do the same.
That’s why I buy ultra-pasteurized milk - it costs more but keeps longer. The overall cost for me is less.
She puts up with you until when???....
Well, it’s been over 30 years off and on...
I can tell you factually, that here in California if I had expired product in use, or not in process of being thrown out and the Health Dept. showed up, I would have been written up and subject to fines if I did not rectify immediately. And of course all the grocery stores either throw out food past it’s sell by/use by dates or the more charitable donate to food banks when product is close to the date because it’s good customer relations.
The last couple of weeks there has been a lady outside one of the local convenience type drugstores handing out FREE breads, rolls, etc. from one of the big baking factories in my area. I stopped one night and asked where or how she came by her bounty she was giving away for free. She explained that the bakery could no longer sell it, but it would still be good for quite a while and of course could be frozen for future use. I gladly accepted several assorted loaves and sandwich breads.
Last week she was there again with her bounty of bread, but this time a police officer was there to arrest her. Not because the bread was stolen, because it wasn’t, but because she was handing out “expired” bread. I guess locally here...you can’t even donate expired bread to the food pantry.
As noted I am using the word ‘expired,’ but for bread it is often a best buy date that is in question.
Only a problem if it’s dented on a seam.
That is usually a sell by date, not a use by date
Several stores in Texas sell “old” food... look up “Scratch & Dent” grocery stores.
Town Talk Foods Ft Worth
(Salvage Grocery)
http://groceryclearancecenter.com/
Grocery Clearance Center - Dallas TX
Then that’s a state law that I don’t know about. Sounds like you’re running a restaurant, not a grocery store? I’ll say again that “expired” is a magic word with a specific meaning that applies only to baby food and baby formula. Here’s the most relevant excerpt from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service:
“Except for infant formula (see below), product dating is not generally required by Federal regulations.”
Which means the feds have no directives on how to deal with stuff being out of date, or what “out of date” even means.
When I worked at a grocery store and an expired/damaged item couldn’t get “credit” from the manufacturer we would be allowed to take some home. lol.
We would sell the bread at a pretty good discount, like quarter a loaf. (early 90’s). A guy who owned one of those mobile BBQ trucks was a customer who would come late at night or early in the morning to buy up these quarter loaves.
He did make good sandwiches too.
Cows die here and there on the Range at times and are pretty easy to find when getting ripe. I reckon that some Malthusian folks could try competing with the coyotes.
Walmart donates some soon to expire products but increasingly prefers to just donate cash. For many reasons such as liability they do not donate expired products. Their purchasing agreements with large manufacturers require them to destroy expired products or return them for destruction.
We were told meds were good about six months past the date.
Viability of milk of course depends on how it is cared for throughout the process. I was in a large grocery store in a city one hot summer day and saw milk stacked up in the aisle waiting to be put away, no employee was nearby- so surely not putting it in the cooler ASAP. I have never bought milk there again, that milk might not make it even to it’s expiration date. I have never seen milk good for 2 weeks past the date no matter how it is handled, it is a matter of two or three days most of the time.
Yep.
You are right about milk. I took deliveries of milk when I worked at the grocery store. We never let it sit out. As soon as the pallet was off the truck I was using the pallet jack or whatever it was called to wheel them into the cooler (which we had just cleaned when empty). We had very little room to spare in there.
We were told meds were good about six months past the date.
This is just information from one source.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update1103a.shtml
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