Don’t be cheated by retailers
I am constantly shocked at the number of products for sale on supermarket shelves which have already passed their use-by date. This is not only true of fresh produce with a short shelf-life, but dried and packaged goods too. If customers aren’t in the habit of checking each and every item they select from the shelf they can be stung in a particularly nasty way.
We can compare this insidious practice with a commercial fraud such as the use by store owners of faulty weights and measures. Having operated for thousands of years, that particular fraud has now been largely eradicated through strong legislation and limited policing. There is no protection, however, against a shop offloading their dead stock onto you, the unwary, frazzled and inattentive shopper. Those retailers will then have made a clear and handsome profit – way in excess of even their most outrageous profit margins. Even if we give the store the benefit of the doubt and allow that it is not deliberate fraud on their part, but merely sloppy stock control methods, why should you be the one to carry the cost of their poor management?
In the absence of consumer protection laws with penalties steep enough to deter this type of theft, it is up to you to be your own guardian.
Never, repeat never, put a product into your supermarket cart without first checking the use-by date.