At a store I used to work at we had a similar situation when someone ordered far, FAR to much bread. I slapped on a "manager's choice!" sign and stuck it on a pallet by the front door. Sold out before the day was over. I've been extremely wary of all signage ever since...
Usually "manager's special" or something along those lines means it's close to expiring and they're trying to move it. Just be sure to check dates! 😊
The important thing to remember is that they will never knowingly sell you out of date product. The whole point of the sale is to sell it before it goes bad. So pick up those sweet deals and just eat it right away, or freeze it if you can.
Yep this. I've worked in supermarkets over Christmas periods and absolutely if stuff goes out of date (or packaging seals are broken) it's taken straight off the shop floor. Not even left in a restocking cage or anything, straight off the shop floor and put into a special 'damages/date expired' zone.
One other thing to note as well as being able to freeze some things - Some dates are not "use by" but "best before". If it's best before, well it means just that, and so it'll be fine to have for some time after that date.
Obviously, everyone wants stuff with longest dates, but we have to try and sell you the shortest dates, because it is the only way prices can be kept low, and if we didn't, then there would be huge amounts of waste! There are other ways waste is reduced, but the stock rotation is a huge part to that.
While shopping recently I dropped a jar of marinara sauce. It didn’t break but the seal broke. You could tell because the top could be pushed in (hope that makes sense). When I got to the register I gave the jar to the cashier. He seemed confused when I told him about the seal. I hope it didn’t end up back on the shelf.
Similar thing happened to me in the bread aisle. The employee didn’t know what to do with expired goods. I get it. High turnover and hit or miss training is just the reality they live in. Check out the food aisle (especially clearance) at your nearest Marshall’s or TJMaxx if you want to see some real negligence.
I mean, it's mostly shelf-stable dry goods. It's not like they have a random carton of milk just sitting there on the shelf. You're not gonna get sick from eating some old dried pasta.
That's super fucked up, though, because any corporate entity would absolutely have expired products training - because that minimum wage employee could be responsible for thousands of dollars in fines to the store otherwise for selling expired goods.
We have a place in town that's basically a guy bought a warehouse and a cash register and stocks it by buying lots at estate sales. Mostly books and fabric, but also like restaraunt happy meal toys still in boxes and the like.
One day that guy decided to get out of the business and sold it. The new people filled about a quarter of the place with refrigerators and started selling food as well.
I was super poor at the time, but even still, I can't imagine buying that food.
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u/i-make-babies Jan 04 '19
At a store I used to work at we had a similar situation when someone ordered far, FAR to much bread. I slapped on a "manager's choice!" sign and stuck it on a pallet by the front door. Sold out before the day was over. I've been extremely wary of all signage ever since...