So, they said they would speak to the one responsibe, and they gave you some of the non expired for free. But that is not good enough?

At a Safeway here in Canada, I've noticed the imitation meat often expires. I've had it on more then one occasion that I've picked it up to look at it, and the inside of the package has been covered in mold...

I've also found that their shallots are usually moldy as well.. the other produce and what not is always really good.. but shallots? All of them have been rotten for the last 2 months.

So... he got free faux meat but feels he should be compensated more?

This stuff happens, it's not necessarily a conspiracy. I've seen it happen at a variety of stores... once at Target with expired yogurt (the manager was horrified and immediately pulled it from the shelves herself) and once at Meijers, when I purchased out of date ranch dressing and brought it back for a direct exchange.

This all seems a little over the top. I think Safeway responded fairly.

i always, always, ALWAYS check the expiration date of any products i buy, regardless of where i purchase them. if it's about to expire? won't buy it. i like to give myself some 'wiggle' room with the dates. especially with dairy products.

@SonicMan: I suspect the problem is that she didn't respond in a suitably surprised, prompt, and concerned manner (i.e. she didn't immediately call someone over to go check/remove the expired products).

Instead she took a more relaxed approach (as if this wasn't the first time it happened) that may have come across as either lazy, or worse yet, lip service that wasn't going to lead to any of the expired food being disposed of.

Maybe have the manager check out the shelf while you observed? Just who the hell do you think you are, The vegan police? And you want 10% off your whole cart for telling them about it? Get a life man. You got more than can reasonably be expected for what happened.

@dragonvpm: Instead she took a more relaxed approach (as if this wasn't the first time it happened)

Fair point but let's be real - it's not the first time. Probably not even the first time that day that something expired was found on the shelf.

Next time, just eat a handful of Bacos!

so he didn't actually purchase anything when he found the problem but was still given something for free and was told that the person who did the stocking was going to be talked to. but that's not enough?

ok the melodrama victimhood is a bit annoying. problem? yes problem solved? yes. whiney customer? yes.

@Youthier: this isn't the first time in the history of grocery stores that something expired was found on the shelf. there's hundreds of thousands of individual food items on the shelf. not only was this not fresh food (ie deli) but it was probably something very rarely purchased. when restocking happens grocery stores have to basically take everything off the shelf to put new product in and move all the current shelved product to the front. deliveries for produce and bread only come on certain days but anything in a can or box comes in huge bulk pallets and are often good for months from receipt.

indignation at this type of mistake is just overboard.

So, somebody screwed up and left expired product on the shelf. This stuff probably doesn't sell very well, so it was probably overlooked. Definitely not the end of the world. Did this guy think he should have to lead an employee back to the fake-meat case, stand by as the employee checks each product, and then lead that employee back to the dumpster to make sure it's disposed of?

I have, in the past, seen expired products on the shelf. In most cases, I've informed an employee and received a thank you. I then let them take care of it from there. It's not my position to tell them how to do their jobs.

I just don't understand why vegetarians don't eat meat but will still buy fake meat. There are plenty of vegetables, pastas, and fruits.

If you want meat, eat meat.

That said, this Safeway seems to be run by incompetants.

10% off your whole order? No one told you to hunt down all the expired faux meat product and do the employee's job for them.

One free is just compensation. I would have happily taken my freebie and gone on my way giving myself a pat on the back for saving other shoppers from accidentally buying expired junk.

Personally in my shopping I've never run into anything expired upon purchase, but I remember once when I was home from college over the summer and my mom had bought some Jack Links jerky for me in single serve foil packages. I took one of them into my room where I was watching a movie. It wad dark when I opened the package and put the first piece in my mouth. It tasted funky, so I swallowed the piece I was eating and went into the living room to tell mom to not buy that flavor again. As I was walking I looked into the package, and ever single piece was covered in mold.

I figured I was gonna either get sick from them or be really healthy, having taken some unprepared penicillin.

If I see something expired on a store shelf (and you can almost always find something in almost every store), I'm happy to turn it in and let them know - and happy to know that I possible helped someone from buying that expired product...... I never thought I deserved a reward for being helpful.

"She sympathized with me and apologized, but did not hint at offering me any compensation...."

I hate it when trolls attack people for being stupid/lazy/etc.. but it really sounds like you're overreacting over an relatively small mistake. Food expires and people that work at grocery stores are usually high school dropouts or college students so don't keep your expectations high.

If it really bothered you then you should have reported it to the health department and purchased your food elsewhere but instead it sounds like you wanted something for nothing. After all, you didn't buy the meat. Last time I checked Safeway wasn't precrime.

Looking at the fact that there was so much product that was out of code, it was probably an item nobody ever buys in the first place.

On the store's side, it's a rotation issue. Either they aren't spot checking codes or new product is getting put in front, which pushes older product in back to be purchased later (opposite of what should happen). When I used to work in the dairy department at a grocery store, it was common for this to happen. Either the person was lazy or didn't know any better. It happens.

At least someone caught it. However, it's not that big of a deal.

Judging by the two page story the consumer wrote, the whole thing's probably blown out of proportion.

I'm sorry, but this seems like a lot of overreaction. I check expiration dates religiously. Sometimes I find something expired and peacefully bring it up to an employee so they can dispose of it. I don't expect compensation, nor do I expect a huge apology. Mistakes happen and I'm just being a good citizen. (What happened to that concept, anyway?)

The store where I should have gone back and thrown a fit is the frozen meat product which made me sick. The only explanation is that it was left on a shelf, defrosted, gone bad, found, and stuck back in the freezer. That is unacceptable.

@sleze69: Well, he said he was a recent vegetarian, so buying fake meat gives you something with taste and texture resembling meat, without the whole flesh of dead animals thing. It allows for a transition. Or maybe some people just like the stuff. But, I agree; something isn't inherently good just because it's made from plant products. Fake meat is heavily processed.

Wow, 10% off? Why? Just look at the date when you pick it up maybe? Pretentious? This happens often and you probably eat a lot of the food not knowing that it had expired.

The major issue here though is fake meat, why? We have canines in our mouth for a reason, to eat meat. Also, we owe our existence to meat proteins. So why the devolution?

Our local grocery chain could care less about having expired product on the shelf and have said as much. They will leave things on the shelves in the hopes that someone will still buy it rather than toss it.

I check the date on everything.

I just don't understand why this customer was due any compensation. He found expired product and brought it to management's attention. Good job. But why is anything owed to him? He suffered, at most, the inconvenience of having to walk back to the shelf to pick up replacement product.

If he really feels that there's a problem with their stocking process, he should stop shopping there. The comment that they should have given 10% off his total (unexpired) order is ridiculous.

Dear folks at Safeway;
You NEED to give me more fake meat for free.

When I go anywhere, I start on the assumption that the people who work there are lazy, unmotivated, or just plain stupid. Unfortunately, I am right most of the time, but I am not caught unawares. And hey, if I'm wrong, then its a pleasant surprise.
It's a sad world when the girl checking out is also texting on her cell phone, and the "managers" (who are teenagers themselves) are gossiping at the service desk.

I guarantee that most of the people that work in a grocery store do not have your best interest at heart. Stocking grocery shelves is a mind numbing, soul sucking job...no matter how much pride you take in the work your manager is still pissed off at the world because they are little more than stock clerks with a better paycheck and I am pretty sure that no one in that store goes out of their way to check anything that isn't out of stock or nearly so...find a store where more vegetarians shop and the turnover on that stuff is better...it's your only chance of getting safer food.

@legotech: Agree with you 100% It's all about the stores bottom line as far as corporate is concerned.

Safeway is a consignment store. They hire people to stock the shelves unless they have a delivery person who does it (bread, soda, etc). The supplier only gets paid after the product is sold. Do the employees give a crap? Would you if you worked at a consignment store?

I run into this problem from time to time as well. Although many vegetarian items have a long shelf life, the Yves imitation meat does not move as quickly as other items in the vegetarian section. I learned long ago to check the dates. Another thing to remember is that the veggie deli slices almost always have a current coupon, so never pay full price.

@sleze69: Amen. They preach healthy eating and living and then fill their guts with the most overly processed fake shit sold. If yo're going to go vegan or vegitarian, go the extra step and go organic.

@sleze69: Some of the fake sausage out there is really, really good, and I love meat (nullus, as they say).

As someone already mentioned, a recent vegetarian convert might want the texture. Also, it's hard to find as efficient a protein source as meat, so if you want the protein without the fat or overeating, a meat substitute is a good option.

Near our home in NJ, Safeway is Genuardi's, a formerly well-respected grocery chain. Since taking the wheel, over the years, Safeway has driven the chain into the toilet.

My last 4 trips to our local Genuardi's was to grab a loaf of bread and a jug of milk. On 3 out of the 4 occasions, they didn't have any skim milk at all, let alone the organic skim we prefer to give our kids. On 2 of the 4 trips, the bread aisle was nearly picked clean, aside from hot dog rolls and some random 79-grain bread that looks like it's made with sand, and Wonder bread. Voicing concern to the person wearing the "Person in Charge" badge (and no, I'm not making that up -- it really says that) was met with blank stares and shrugged shoulders. I got an apology that amounted to, "Sorry we were out of milk." What grocery store runs out of MILK?????

I don't even bother with them any longer for the quick "I need this 1 thing right now" trips. I go to the Shop Rite that's about the same distance, but less convenient to drive to because of road topology. Shop Rite has yet to fail me in this capacity.

I think the problem is the way Safeway employees restock the inventory. When I worked in retail, we were always instructed to put the new inventory BEHIND the old. That way, the older inventory gets purchased first and we can usually prevent things like this from happening. We were also told to inspect the dates on the packages when we restocked and to make sure they were in order, starting with the earliest expiration date up front (and to remove expired items). Of course, this was 15 years ago.

Since then, tho, I tend to reach as far back as possible to get refrigerated/frozen items. Not only is it the coldest part of the fridge/freezer, where the meat/vegetables/product tends to keep better, but if people do their jobs right, that's where the freshest product is to be found. However, this isn't a substitute for checking the expiration date on the package.

As an experienced vegetarian from Texas I say, get used to it. You aren't owed anything because you almost bought an expired item. You are making the rest of us look whiney.

@HIV 2 Elway: Many faux meats are organic, just heavily processed like you said. You just have to weed out the crap and get the good stuff with as few unprocessed ingredients as possible (ie. tempeh rather than faux bacon strips) and in any case, veg or otherwise, prepackaged has nothin' on old fashioned homemade food but when you have 20 minutes for lunch and feeling real sloppy, we all cave.

@spinachdip: There is a surpassingly good "scrapple", vrapple, made locally that is by far better than real scrapple which I used to make when I worked in a meat shop years ago (once you see what goes into scrapple you will never eat it again).

God, you're greedy.

Years ago before I started checking expiration dates, I bought some expired food from Safeway. I noticed the date later when I was home. I brought it back to the store to exchange it for a fresh one but the rest of them were expired too. I reported this to the manager yet days later the expired items were still on the shelf. Some managers care, some don't. Now I always check expiration dates before I put an item into my basket.

@legotech: I second that. The worst offenders are the employees who put refrigerated or frozen items back on the shelves even though the food has been sitting out for a while. Usually these are discarded items at checkouts from customers who decided not to buy it. Instead of calling someone over to put these temperature sensitive items back on the shelf right away, the clerk just tosses it to the side. I've seen meat just sitting there happily collecting all the bacteria it can.

And here's where you lost me...

"...but did not hint at offering me any compensation for almost selling me food that was without a doubt unfit for consumption..."

They almost sold you expired food and you should be compensated? What?!

Safeway is just like every other grocery store - they pay teenagers who couldn't care less minimum wage to stock the shelves.

Get over yourself.

@spinachdip: beans and peanut butter. any legume really.

I agree that this guy doesn't deserve any compensation for not buying anything, but it's quite alarming to me that the expired food sat out there for SO LONG without anyone noticing. Do they not have employees go through the food once a week (at least) or something to throw out the expired items? It's not like this was one item either; several expired items had been left out, which indicates that somebody isn't doing his or her job.

@MissPeacock: Yeah - seems to me the manager should do their job and jump down some employees' throats.

It doesn't sound like Safeway's organizational system is very efficient. They should look into that and fix it.

The guy didn't even deserve the free fake meat that he got. I like to live my life by the idea that we're a community, and as a community we can be expected to point out when something is wrong, not so we can be compensated, but so it can help other members of the community.

This guy pointed this out, the store pulled the products and now the next person isn't going to die of whatever you die of when you eat expired fake meat. Yay.

This is a prime example of a feeling of entitlement. "YOU OWE ME!!" Yes, they do. They owe you a thanks for helping them fix a problem. If you'd bought it and taken it home, they'd owe you a non-expired package of fake meat and possibly a refund for making the trip.

@shockwaver: Clearly the shallot manager is deficient!

This weekend, I found @ my local grocery that nearly all the half-gallons of milk were expired, some by as much as 2 weeks. Nobody is buying half-gallons, because compared to full gallons, they are severely overpriced ($3.79 a gal/$2.99 a half-gal). Quarts are $1.99, and 12 oz (no pints) $1.49. Whatever happened to proportional pricing? This expiration-thing happens at Wal-Mart too, except for their cheapest (store) brand of milk.

Compensation for finding expired food? Come on. I find expired food from time to time in the supermarket. I tell the manager and they clear them off the shelves. My "compensation" is knowing that I possibly prevented someone else from getting sick. That is all I need. I never ask to get the item for free. This person feels the world owes them. Grow up.

Also, shouldn't an inventory system automatically inform you of when your products expire? The store should print out lists daily and have people go and pull the products. This should be standard...I mean logically.

So, this shopper needs a substitute meat substitute? Might I suggest meat?

@Daniel Alderman: never worked in food service have you? everything has to be dated and all date checks are visual. instituting an electronic system to keep track of an entire grocery store's worth of product would be less efficient than just having people check the dates while stocking. this goes for restaurants as well. you mark it, put it in order newest in back, oldest in front, and you just check every time you stock, or in the case of restaurants, every time you do prep. as it is, it's actually perfect. even an inventory system with a database and printouts would still be faulty at the point of human error/laziness. it would just waste more paper.

@katylostherart: Bite me, I spent $100 and that was AFTER the cashier's response.

@coan_net: So you do the store's work for them for free and never expect anything back? You truly are a store's best friend.

I didn't expect a ticker-tape parade. Note how I didn't ask them for anything. I waited to hear what they would offer and accepted it graciously. I just think people should know that nobody had checked for expired product in over a month. If that's cool with you, by all means keep shopping at Safeway.

@ all the vegetarian bashers: You're pretty funny. For the record, I've only been a vegetarian for 9 months or so and I'm used to eating sandwiches. meat substitutes make it easier and there are a lot of tasty options out there. I like them. So I buy them.

@captadam: I didn't tell them how to do their jobs. I'm just sayin', that if I were the store management, I would have gone out of my way to prove that I did take that seriously, lest the customer go home figuring that we leave month-expired product on the shelf all the time and think it's no big deal. See the difference?

If you walked into McDonald's and were served a cheeseburger that was a month old, and when you brought it back you just got a response of "oops, here's a free cheeseburger for your trouble," I wonder how excited you'd be to go back and eat there?

@gmss0205: " I never ask to get the item for free." Neither did I. I didn't ask for anything. I would have been more impressed by someone doing something about it than any amount of freebies. But I forgot this is Blame-The-Consumerist, right?

We pay their high prices so they can pay good wages to employees who--don't do their jobs. And I better shut up and like it. Right?

They need to do their jobs.

I'd have told them I'd take it all off their hands and cooked up a huge pot of jumbalaya. Expiration dates are for wimps. You cookthat stuff up long enough and add enough hot sauce and it'll be ok. You're like my wife, won't drink milk one day after the date printed on it. It's not a black magic spell, just a conservative guess for the lawyers.