Do you follow Use by and Sell by Dates, and other food safety issues

zippychick

ill merge this with our sell by/use by dates thread later on. It does seem ridiculous they wouldn't sell you them! I wonder what happens to the products that aren't heavily reduced. Last night i picked up two red peppers and a bag of lettuce for 30p. There were packs of mixed veg still priced at over a £1 and the store was closing within the next hour. It just seems the supermarkets would rather not reduce some items down.

My local tesco - you rarely see anything reduced below a pound, no matter what. It's like they would rather just bin the lot as people expect heavy reductions when it's so late in the day and the item is going to be binned anyway!!!!:mad:

oldtractor

the best thing to do is write or email your local MP about it. Something will eventually be done about this stupid situation of enough people complain to the government.

ladymarmalade

It is madness......especially as they were well within the use by date. However, it is unfortunately due to our blame culture, in my opinion. I can well imagine someone buying a ckae past its sell by date, but within the use by date, falling ill a few days later, and putting the blame on the supermarket, wanting refunds and compensation etc....probably not worth the hassle for the supermarkets, but a great shame!

Callie22

We moved into a new place a few weeks ago and discovered, at about five o'clock on a Bank Holiday Sunday evening, that the oven was broken. We had nothing in and nipped to the local Co-op, where we picked up two reduced ready meals. The woman on the till scanned them in and then gave them to us for nothing - apparently they were at the end of their sell-by and the till showed that they should not be charged for. I was surprised (and pleased lol) but it shows that some supermarkets still have a bit of common sense.

The_Thrilla

They couldn't SELL them to you. But couldn't they GIVE them to you?

make_me_wise

Angelfeathers wrote: »

Yeah, I had a similar situation with a couple of packs of on the vine tomatoes a while ago - beautifully ripe and gorgeous, and the cashier sympathised with me but said he couldn't sell them to me or even give them to me because they were past their sell by.

It's criminal. You really ought to be able to sign something to the effect that you wouldn't sue if you got food poisoning and then be able to take the things.

Thing is you wouldn't get food poisoning because the food is still completely usable. Its not as if any of the items mentioned so far were past the 'use by date'. Thats the date the shops should go by really and do away with the 'sell by date' altogether.

People dont seem to use common sense anymore.

taxsaver

Although I think it's ridiculous that they wouldn't sell or give those cakes to the OP, we do need to be careful in pushing for the 'sell by' date to be scrapped. I wouldn't be too happy to be sold those cakes at full price with only a day until the 'use by' date. Having the 'sell by' date does help to enusre that we are not sold things with only a minimal shelf-life left.

Justamum

spike7451 wrote: »

I was in the CoOp today getting my paper & they had three sponge cakes & a walnut loaf reduced to 10p each,because they were on the sell by date.
So I thought I'd buy them,give one to my neighbor & scoff the rest.Actuall sell by date was yesterday so they couldn't sell them to me.Use by date still as another seven days on them!!
So four items that someone (me!) couldv'e enjoyed now go in the bin even tho they are still fit to eat!!
Personally,I think they should scrap the sell by date & just go by the use by date.think of the food that would be saved by that simple step!

I'm happy with the sell by date because it means you can get stuff reduced! I've often gone in to H&B and picked up reduced stuff. If it's gone past its sell by date the manager tells me he can't sell it to me - but he's happy to give it to me for nothing! I've picked up loads of soya products that way and it's save me a small fortune :T

Gothicfairy

I don't pay any attention to used by or sell by dates when it comes to eating the things ( had 4 day out of date fresh egg pasta last night and it was fine, although I wouldn't suggest everyone does the same) but I do use the dates when it comes to buying things. As someone else has already said I would not want to pay full price for something that close to it's sell by / used by date.

But saying that I bought some brown cobs yesterday with a date of Aug 8th on them and 2 were totally mouldy which you couldn't see because of the packaging.

I think throwing things out is always a terrible waste but with the culture we live in now I can see why they do it, you only have to read some of the threads on MSE to see how quick people are in the queue for compo if anything is wrong or even if it is not.


As they say " no good deed goes unpunished"

Oh and got to say love the quote justamum..

building_with_lego

zippychick wrote: »

ill merge this with our sell by/use by dates thread later on. It does seem ridiculous they wouldn't sell you them! I wonder what happens to the products that aren't heavily reduced. Last night i picked up two red peppers and a bag of lettuce for 30p. There were packs of mixed veg still priced at over a £1 and the store was closing within the next hour. It just seems the supermarkets would rather not reduce some items down.

My local tesco - you rarely see anything reduced below a pound, no matter what. It's like they would rather just bin the lot as people expect heavy reductions when it's so late in the day and the item is going to be binned anyway!!!!:mad:

At out local the reducing lady finishes at tea time so that final price is the best reduction you'll get :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: . I have heard it said that the staff may get given the oou of date stuff so maybe, just maybe, it's not going in the bin