My anger at supermarket chains

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by Vlad_Dracul

<snip>Of course before the era of "use buy" dates people shopped,cooked and got by very well. If i have stuff in my fridge thats passed its use by date i certainly dont bin it. 99% of the time its perfectly edible up to a week past that date.<snip>

I'd be very surprised if chilled food was still edible and safe after an additional week - as homealone said, the reason that chilled foods have use by dates on them is because of the microbiological risk. The temperatures that the average home fridge operate at aren't enough to completely stop microbiological growth so every time you eat a product like that, you're actually putting your health at risk...

[handyman]

I seem to recall Claire telling be that the Asda store she worked at threw away £7,000,000 worth of stuff every year.

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by handyman

I seem to recall Claire telling be that the Asda store she worked at threw away £7,000,000 worth of stuff every year.

I think that there may be a couple of additional zeros in that figure, but I'm inclined to agree that it's a hell of a lot. Still, I'd rather throw it away than suffer food poisoning

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Nugget

I'd be very surprised if chilled food was still edible and safe after an additional week - as homealone said, the reason that chilled foods have use by dates on them is because of the microbiological risk. The temperatures that the average home fridge operate at aren't enough to completely stop microbiological growth so every time you eat a product like that, you're actually putting your health at risk...

As I understand it the guidelines with respect to chilled foods are there to minimise a very small risk. They don't mean that every chilled meal is necessarily inedible or unsafe after a week. Of course there'd be more risk from chilled precooked foods which are not going to be cooked. As for risk, it's all proportionate and I dare say far more people get seriously ill or die as a result of not washing their hands properly than do from eating chilled food which is out of date.

[punky]

'Back in the day' (before use-by dates) when people used to sniff things before deciding to eat them, it was a completely different era, incomparable with ours. With the absence of fridges or freezers, the housewife toddled down to the grocers more-or-less every day to buy food that was freshly delivered.

Nowadays food is already stretched as much as possible to increase profitability (due to competition) but also funnily-enough to decrease wastage (due to lifestyle changes - food with the longest dates get bought)

[Shadow Demon UK]

I use to work at Marks and Spencer a while back and they used to sell the stock going out of date that was best before in a staff shop and anything that was going out of date and was a use by product at the end of the night to staff for about 60% off. We used to take all the stuff that wasnt sold back up to the warehouse and it went to a good cause...us! We just used to eat most of it and threw the rest away

I don't think supermarkets want to take the risk of being sued because they have given food away that could be dangerous. This country is getting more and more like America with the sueing culture and it wouldn't suprise me if someone tried sueing a supermarket because they got ill from some free food they were given, it's probably a risk not worth taking.

[Vlad_Dracul]

Originally Posted by Nugget

I'd be very surprised if chilled food was still edible and safe after an additional week - as homealone said, the reason that chilled foods have use by dates on them is because of the microbiological risk. The temperatures that the average home fridge operate at aren't enough to completely stop microbiological growth so every time you eat a product like that, you're actually putting your health at risk...

My personal experience would lead me to disagree.

Wen i speak of food kept in the fridge, ammainly talkng about rea foods. I do not allow ready meals and the like into my fridge or my home as generally,they are rubbish. I tend to do real cooking, i.e the production of meals from base ingredients.

Also there is a clear difference between use by and best before.
Itend to find that diary produce such as fresh milk andcream,will have gone off no long after its stated date.

For info the current temps in my freezer fridge are


Freezer -24
Fridge +3
Ambient room +24

The freezer is perhaps a tad too cold.

[SydneyHopper]

I know of a few supermarkets that have an agreement with local homeless shelters, and we should not forget that food prices would be allot higher if we didn't have supermarkets and the poor would not be able to eat their turkey twisters

Regarding the comments about chilled ready meals, all the food manufacturers conduct shelf life trials on these type of products. These trials attempt to simulate the 'average' conditions the product would be stored at in a domestic refrigerator.

Given that each day of extra shelf life represents a conceptual bonus to the seller, who would much rather someone bought the product, rather than them having to throw it away, it is necessarily a compromise between safety & profit - that has to err on the side of safety.

Vlad-Dracul raised a good point about storage temperatures - his fridge & freezer are operating nominally, but not everyone is as aware of the need to store chilled food below 5°C - and there can also be a significant difference in temperature between the top shelf & bottom shelf in a domestic fridge, especially large older models. This has to be taken into account when determining the shelf life - the trials conducted by the manufacturers do try to take this into account.

So while it is generally correct many products may still be 'safe' beyond the use by date, it can't be extrapolated to say that is always the case.

Another consideration is the demographic - a type of food poisoning bacteria called Listeria is capable of growth at chill temperatures (albeit more slowly the colder it gets), but elderly people, pregnant women & anyone with a compromised immune system are more susceptible to Listeria poisoning than others, so should take extra care.

[Julian]

I wouldn't think for one minute that any unsold goods going out of date cost any major supermarket chain a penny.

They will just screw over the hapless supplier for some extra rebate with the threat of "no more business" if they fail to agree.

[Graham M]

Even though it's gone in the bin? I doubt it

Originally Posted by Zeph

Even though it's gone in the bin? I doubt it

You'd be surprised what the supermarkets charge their suppliers for - who do you think pays for the BOGOF deals, it certainly isn't the supermarket.

They also demand 'contributions' to advertising campaigns, full expenses (travel & accomodation) for any visits they make, whether arranged, or not, etc, etc.

So the concept that they only pay for the products they sell, rather those they order, isn't so far fetched ...