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| Friday, March 21, 2008 |
| High Grocery Bills? Get Great Deals on Dated Food |
ABCNews show Nightline aired this story Friday evening: High Grocery Bills? Get Great Deals on Dated Food about discount grocery store chains selling outdated food. These chains are growing in popularity as people seek out ways to save on inflating food prices. Expiration Dates Not Meaningless
Mitchell says he has never had a customer get sick from anything bought at any of his stores. In fact, he believes products are so well packaged and preserved that "it would be a waste to destroy" those products.
"We'll keep the price moving until they're sold and we have a lot of customers actually gravitate to those products because they know they are of a significant value," Mitchell said. "They may save 70 to 80 percent."
As part of an unscientific taste test, a "Nightline" correspondent and producer sampled a lot of outdated, damaged food, without getting sick. Despite this, Mitchell says "best before" and expiration dates are not completely meaningless.
"They do help a consumer know freshness and they prevent products being sold significantly past their dates," Mithchell said.
Deciding how old is too old is ultimately up to the consumer. A risk that so far is paying off for surplus grocers such as Amelia's.
- Those dented cans are becoming more appealing to shoppers
- Time to put a chicken coop in the back yard...Labels: Inflation Intimation |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 11:40 PM *
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| 3 Comments: |
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I regularly buy outdated crackers, croutons and cookies at the Pepperidge Farm outlet. I have found that 2-3 months past the best by date still produces tasty product. I regularly buy snack sized goldfish packages for $0.10 each. I keep them in storage and when we are running out the door and I know the kids are going to want a snack, I throw some goldfish in my purse and bring along some ice water. $0.20 snacks.
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My parents did this all the time and I'm in the habit of it a bit myself as well. My dad is a chemical engineer and worked for Nestle for over 20 years. He knew a lot about food science, preservatives, etc. The "expiration dates" on most food is well before the food actually goes bad or even begins to break down. It can range from anywhere to being off by years to just days or a week depending on the food. Dairy for instance is usually just a few days or a week while coke/pepsi is years beyond the expiration date (which is usually over a year away when you buy it). But in any case, this is a great way to save a lot of money on groceries. My grocery store doesn't sell food that is past its expiration date, I think that is illegal. But they sell groceries that are near their expiration at very cheap prices, sometimes like 90% off and it is perfectly good, especially if you are eating it soon. Another great thing is to buy meat this way, they usually put the expiration date just a few days after they package it. My grocer sells them on the day or day before the expiration date for half off. It is perfectly fine for several days afterwards even, and if you're going to freeze it for later use it makes no difference.
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You know, I was always raised to "look at the expiration date first". And I always did. That was the date that the food (or milk, or eggs or whatever) automatically became inedible and we needed to throw it away.
Since our budget has been so tight, though, I've been buying "about to expire" meat at a 50% discount. We'll use the milk until it smells bad. And the eggs from our chickens don't come with an expiration date, LOL, so the ones from the store, well, we tend to disregard that too.
Our town has a monthly food distribution where anyone who wants extra food can go and get a couple of laundry baskets of free food. A lot of it is expired, but very edible. I also have heard that many things, when they're past their expiration dates, "go bad" but that doesn't mean that you'll get sick, for the most part. Usually it means that the item might taste "off" or some of the nutrition is gone....
Generally, as long as it smells like it's supposed to, and either frozen, cooked well, or dry, I've never had a problem and that's one of the reasons I've been able to keep our food budget so low, even in these days of expanding prices....
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I regularly buy outdated crackers, croutons and cookies at the Pepperidge Farm outlet. I have found that 2-3 months past the best by date still produces tasty product. I regularly buy snack sized goldfish packages for $0.10 each. I keep them in storage and when we are running out the door and I know the kids are going to want a snack, I throw some goldfish in my purse and bring along some ice water. $0.20 snacks.