Grocery Store Etiquette Revisited.

[Dangerously Amused]

We all know that grocers rotate their stock so that items with expiration dates in the near future are closest to the consumer, while identical items which will not expire for a while are toward the back. This of course is done so that consumers will purchase the items which are about to expire and thereby prevent the store from suffering a loss by having to remove and discard any older, expired items still on the shelf.

Question: It is bad / wrong / unfair to take the fresher items from the back?


Along those lines, of what use are the "Sell by" dates if they don't tell you when the item actually expires?

[mainegreen]

1. Not wrong at all. All the items are for sale, and you may buy any one you wish!

[Dangerously Amused]

6. I'm glad you think so.

Reason I ask is, yesterday while at the grocery store I went to purchase some bottles of my favorite juice. This juice is made without preservatives and therefore must be refrigerated. Because the juice does not have a long shelf life I have learned to always check the expiration date. There were six bottles of the juice in the cooler. I checked the date on the first bottle, and the expiration date was three weeks old. I set that bottle aside. The next two bottles had expiration dates in about a week. I wanted to buy several bottles, but I wasn't sure if I would drink them all within the week. The last three bottles had expiration dates about two months down the road. I bought all three of those. But it was obvious what I was doing, and I noticed a nearby shopper look at me as though I was doing being inconsiderate of others or something. Then I felt all guilty. :(

[madinmaryland]

10. Don't worry about it!

I always take the one with the expiration date the farthest out. For what I spend, I sure as hell am not going to buy a product that is old. If the grocery store does not know how to order, its not my problem.

If another shopper looks at you funny, its their problem and not yours. It is NOT rude to find the freshest product.

[azmouse]

2. If I'm going to use the item immediately

I'll buy the item with the earlier expiration date. But if I need the item to last a bit longer I'll take the the one with the later expiration date.

Most items with just a 'sell by' date are good for about a week beyond that date. At least, that's what I go by.

[LostinVA]

3. I do that all the time, especially with dairy and meat

I just don't make a mess while doing it.

[Arkansas Granny]

19. I do the same. Those are about the only two types of items that

I make a habit of looking for dates.

[begin_within]

4. What I hate is the cashiers YELLING TO EACH OTHER as if the customer is a transparent curtain.

And letting another cashier "buy quarters" from them while they should be WAITING ON THE CUSTOMER.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Grocery terrorist!

1)Nothing wrong with taking the fresher items as long as you don't turn an order display into a mess.
Take milk, for example. A gallon of milk lasts us 10 days and we benefit by buying the fresher stock. A family with milk-drinking kids may not care that the expiration date is in 5 days because the milk will be gone long before that.

2)Sell by dates were added to some products with long shelf lives because customers were looking for expiration dates on these products. Funny, isn't it?

[billyskank]

7. What annoys me

is when the supermarkets randomly rearrange all their stock periodically.

I know why they do this. They are forcing us to hunt for the stuff we want to buy, in the hope that we will alight on some random other shit we don't want and buy that too.

But it pisses me off! They are wasting my time by making me have to hunt for my normal shit! :grr:

[azmouse]

8. But you DID find the bread, right?

:hi:

[billyskank]

9. I forgot it

:blush:

[begin_within]

12. Forgot, my ass!

[Kali]

13. ooo me too!

fricking store rearranged like 6 or 7 months ago (maybe a year?) I still can't find stuff. arrrggggggg

[Connonym]

11. You're entitled to buy the freshest one available

I've noticed that grocery stores aren't on the ball with removing expired food from the shelves. I've learned that lesson the hard way and now I look for the expiration date on any item and always select based on the expiration date. I also refuse to take refrigerated/frozen foods from the front of the shelf. My theory may be wack but I figure stuff in the front isn't as cold/fresh as stuff further back. My OCD is never more evident than at the grocery store. You DON'T want to be there if a bagger makes the mistake of sticking a package of meat with the rest of my food (especially with fresh veg). I get downright medieval on their heinies. They can laugh at me all they like, I'm not going to get e. coli from having my steak drip juice on my carrots.

[flvegan]

14. Here's the thing...

First, scenario. Let's talk, oh, I don't know...eggs. Consumed by the masses, expiration dates, store stock is usually pretty large. The eggs towards the top have a sell-by date of 7 days from today. The ones towards the back are 14 days. One is looking to buy a dozen eggs. This person eats 2 eggs every single day, like clockwork (or has a family and will use a dozen in the course of a few days). This person should, responsibly, buy from the front, allowing the stock to rotate. It leaves the "newer" ones towards the back for later purchase, or for purchase by someone that might need the full two weeks to consume the eggs.

Why?

Waste. If the eggs don't get purchased due to the mad rush for the later date, they become scrub. Scrub is a waste for the store (prices). Scrub may cause diminished demand. Considering battery farm owners make, literally, pennies per egg, this hurts the egg producers. Also, the dozen eggs that get thrown away is the production of a couple battery farm hens that lived a tortured life in abject squalor, just to be thrown away.

[Kali]

15. my store puts close-to-expiration date eggs (and other stuff)

on sale to move them. Its an old strategy that benefits people on budgets.

PS I have never seen a rotten egg in a refrigerator. Only in a nest. They may not be real fresh but they will last quite a while as long as they are kept cold (even if you buy mass produced store eggs). And "stale" eggs are a heck of a lot easier to peel when hard boiled.

[flvegan]

16. 'Tis a good idea

and most stores should do this (if they don't already) as the benefit is obvious.

I also agree in that I don't think I've ever seen a rotten egg at a market or in a properly tended fridge (college experience trumps the "any refrigerator" idea...don't ask).

What bugs the hell out of me (speaking of eggs), is when someone decides at the checkout line that they don't want the eggs they picked up, so they put them conveniently on a rack, out of general eyesight of an employee. There they sit, almost sure to be tossed. Wasteful.

I'm just ranting now.

[Little Wing]

30. Same thing with those carousel vending machines

with the egg salad, turkey, ham and cheese sandwiches. Totally wasteful, I hate them.

[seemunkee]

33. I don't think its ranting

Its only right that for those of us who eat animal products that we be thankful for what we eat. Being wasteful is a lack of respect for the life that was given so that we may eat eggs, cheese, milk, and meat.

[Left Is Write]

18. I have found eggs to last much longer than the sell-by dates.

You're right, of course, that they are not at their optimum freshness, but that makes them perfect for deviled eggs. :)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

20. Yeah, eggs tend to be good for about a month after the sell-by date.

When I worked at the health food store, I'd eat expired food all the time. Stuff really does stay good longer than the sell-by dates. I'm super picky about food and I never got sick or found something to be inedible because it was past the sell-by.

[JVS]

17. I only take the stuff in the back because I am single and a gal of milk...

would expire on me way too early, if I took the front one. What bugs me is when I see families shopping and buying the stuff at the back. If you have 6 people in your household, you are going to finish the front row milk before it's bad.

[dysfunctional press]

21. you're entitled to take any item that's for sale-

and as many as you like, unless a limit is posted.

end of story, no guilt needed.

[Kali]

22. On your other question of sell by vs. actual expiration.

While tha vast majority of Americans think food comes from the grocery store, the truth is the basics are "natural" products grown and harvested from animals or the land. It can be a hard to pin down actual expiration dates just because of the timing of harvest, processing etc but when you add in the variables after purchase, such as when it gets opened, temperature of storage, cleanliness of handling etc it becomes impossible to predict exactly when something is no longer fit to eat.

[Auggie]

23. I think it's every shopper for her or himself

[rug]

24. Not only is it right, but I put the ones in the front in the back.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

27. Why? That food that doesn't get taken because of a sell date usually ends up having to be thrown

away and wasted. . .

[rug]

28. Because consumers often buy stuff and do not plan to use it right away.

I'd rather the store get stuck with expired food than a consumer.

[ThomCat]

25. I live alone and only eat at home on the weekends

so if I buy something with an expiration date on it I want one with the furthest possible date. Otherwise I'll be throwing stuff away.

I've never considered whether or not someone might be offended by this. If they use stuff quickly then they don't have to worry about the expiration date. If they're like me and want stuff that will last a while, then first come, first served.
:shrug:

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

26. Not wrong imo. I think it's a good move by the grocery though, both economical and environmentaly

Not only would they lose money, but most of that food ends up getting thrown away if it doesn't sell. I'll usually grab whatever is at the front, because we go shopping once a week, and it's usually gone before it goes bad.

[trof]

29. I ALWAYS dig in the back of the milk cooler.

Gotta get the farthest distant date.

[Orsino]

31. If they really need to sell some items quickly...

...they'll mark them down. With the front-to-back stocking, they are hoping we won't notice that among a bunch of items priced identically, some will have a much longer shelf life for the consumer. The stores are trying to save themselves the trouble of constant restocking by counting on our carelessness.

I don't feel guilty, any more than I do for picking the best-looking produce.

[skygazer]

32. Here's an opinion from a grocery store employee

You are entitled to buy whatever product you want to buy. I myself look for long sell-by dates on certain items because I know I won't use them all up at once. It just makes sense.

Sometimes we're sent product from the warehouse that expires fairly soon. That's aggravating because we'll just end up having to throw a lot of it out. But that's not the fault of the consumer - if you're paying for a product, you have the right to be choosy.

There's a tremendous amount of waste in the grocery business - it makes me sick. We used to be able to donate a lot of items to food banks or charities but that list has been whittled way down because of fears of litigation. We uses to be able to give spoiled vegetables or outdated dairy products to farmers who fed them to their pigs but we can no longer do that, either.

We cannot donate bread that is not packaged - like the fresh bakery bread - even though it would be just as easy to tamper with the packaged stuff as it is with the unpackaged. And often we're not even allowed to mark stuff down but have to throw it away - even though there's nothing wrong with it.

None of that is the fault of the consumer per se. You're paying for a fresh product - dig for a good date to your heart's content!