Where have I been? Best buy dates on Hunts tomato sauce...

karennoca

Well-known member
Yesterday, I bought some Hunts tomato sauce. Today, I am making tacos, and when I went to open a small can of tomoto sauce to put into my browning hamburger, I noticed on the top of the can a best buy date of March 12, 2012! Really? I checked the other can in the pantry and it had a best buy of Nov. 11, 2012. I was floored. I have never paid attention to the best buy dates because I have never looked for them on tomato sauce. I make my own roasted tomato sauce and freeze it. It is reserved for more special recipes. I keep a few cans of commercial tomato sauce for things like tacos, soups, etc.

But March 12, 2012? When it was bought on March 3. Where has this can been....stored in a warehouse somewhere? Has tomato sauce always had this short of a shelf life?

 
A few things can happen to cause this. Essentially, it is a failure to properly...

...rotate inventory. It can happen in the warehouse, in the storage area of the grocery store itself, and, rarely, at the manufacturing plant.

I buy whole truck loads (semi trucks) of food products at a huge discount because whoever was storing and handling the product didn't ship the oldest product first. If they do that consistently and properly, food gets to your grocery store with plenty of code dating.

Major grocery chains won't buy cereal, for example, with less than 9 months code left on it. They usually won't sell it with less than 2 to 3 months left. They pull it from their shelves at that point and sell it to discount and salvage stores. Even Big Lots won't take cereal with less than 6 months code left on it.

At the store level, when the stockers re-stock the shelves at night, they are supposed to stock from the back of the shelf. This means that all the product on the shelf gets moved forward, and the new product gets placed behind it. Doing this is obviously more work than just putting the new product right on the shelf and pushing the remaining product to the back. I'm guessing that's what happened to your tomato sauce. Someone got lazy, or in a hurry, and didn't move the old stuff forward in a timely manner.

If the managers don't watch for this sort of thing when their stockers re-stock the shelves, it can go on for months. It creates a real mess for the store and for the customer.

Michael

 
This is why it takes me hours to go throught he grocery...

I read every label. Verify the contents. Check the expiration date. My local Trader Joe, as much as I love that store, are notorious about their expired product dates (cheeses and vitamins especially). I tried to be polite about it and take expired product to the front desk, but after less than enthusiastic response, when I find expired product now, I just fling it out onto the floor.

I always shop "from the back" and reach behind to pull out the later date product. Example, all the quarts of cream at the store today were March 22, the ones in the back were April 21. Guess which one I came home with?

Caveat emptor y'all.

 
Golly Richard, do you really do that? I'd hate to be the lady behind you to step on the product and

down I go. Oy!

 
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