sell by dates.

[Sorastro]

I have now got into the habit of checking the sell by date of EVERY bit of foodstuff I buy, and with good reason.

For example I still love Heinz tinned spaghetti and I buy 3 tins at a time, the last lot I bought was just a month ago and checked the s.b.d. on each can, the first tin I picked up {obviously the one at the front} had the s.b.d. of 10/24 so went to the back of the tins and got 3 that will last till 2026.
The wife came back from town today and had bought a packet of mixed nuts and raisins from a well known chain {very cold in there!!} and she opened them this afternoon and found the s.b.d. on the pack is January 2025, o.k. they're still edible but that's not the point. Many years ago we were in Morrisons Staveley and on our list was cat food for our cat, I started to reach onto the shelves and couldn't believe it, the packs of food were crawling with maggots, I told an assistant and asked her to fetch the shop manager and get him to look at the cat food, two minutes later there were at least six assistants clearing the shelf scooping the cat food into small wheelie bins and that's just cat food!.
This is the reason I don't order shopping on line half the time you don't know what your getting.

 My local shop in the village started me off checking as having been caught out a couple of times. I watch the assistants as I walk round re stocking and I could see they just push the older stock to the back of the shelf and put the new at the front, basically because they're too bone idle to do it properly.

[Old Cruser]

I don't buy tinned food in small amounts, we don't actually use much tinned food.
The fresh meats etc from chiller cabinmates I always check and if they can't be eaten in time of the date running out I don't buy it.
Special offers
I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to these as I will stand working out sizes / quantitie, prices and surprisingly they are NOT always the best buy.
Toilet rolls are a typical one to watch out for.

[Sorastro]

The item in the shops that always used to get my goat was "Fresh eggs", yes they were probably fresh once, but by the time they reach the shelves and you purchase them they were anything but.
Thankfully the shops seem now to have cottoned on to the fact it could possibly be in breach of the trade descriptions act calling "old" eggs fresh and seem to have cut that particular word off the boxes.