To complain about use by dates?

[Crunchymum]

Was too scared to post in AIBU .

We are (un)lucky enough to have a delivery slot as we are a shielding household. I am very, very grateful.

However the shopping arrived today and essential items are very poorly dated.

The bread is actually dated yesterday - 6th April !!! 4 pints of milk dated today . Most fresh stuff dated today as well.

I know a lot of stuff will keep, I can pop some in the freezer etc but I am going to now need to go out for bread an milk in the next day or so anyway?

Is it worth complaining or should I just suck it up?

suck it up

I would say something - there seems to be a prevailing attitude on MN at the moment that people who are relying on delivery should be grateful for whatever miserable rations they get. Milk is available in the shops with a decent date, as is bread - there is no reason why these can’t have been delivered to you.

Personally, I'd complain. What use is 4 pints of milk with today's date on them ?? It's not as if you could pop out and replace them.

Yes. You were delivered an item past its use by date.
It will still be edible but that isn't the point. You should get a refund. If not, tweet.

The milk sounds like poor stock rotation.
The milk the milkman brought yesterday to us (6th) has a date of the 15th on it, so it
probably has 10 ish days shelf life. That's been hanging around the supermarket for over a week.

This is the kind of thing our local asda would do.

With asda you can request a refund online. One of the choices is short shelf life. Not sure which supermarket you ordered from but this may be an option?

Yes I'd complain. Home delivery is supposed to help keep you at home. Now you'll need to go out for bread and milk

Definitely not being unreasonable to complain!

I’d freeze most of the bread and milk (the milk in batches so you can defrost a bit at a time) rather than go out if I was shielding though. Sorry if that’s obvious, for some reason a fair few people think you can’t freeze milk. Frozen bread makes good toast and you don’t even need to defrost it first.

It's Sainsburys, I don't think they have the option for requesting a refund due to poor shelf life.

It feels so petty to complain but it is quite a bit of stuff (not all essential to be fair - things like cloeslaw, hummus and potato salad all use by tomorrow.... I know they will all keep a few days etc... but I doubt we'll get through them all)

Its not about the money, but I guess either way one of us still have to go out !

IMO Sainsbury's are getting worse with their choices (& not just because of Coronavirus). I ordered pizza bases at Christmas (ones that are in the fridges not the pre packaged shelf ones) & when they arrived, they were over a month out of date 🤨. They're telling you to contact customer services if they send a substitute but obviously you can't get through to them & for you, means you still need to go out for bread & milk.

Its about perspective. The person doing the picking was making choices that were just in date to clear the shelves whereas you want groceries with a long life. Inform them that you are disappointed in the service and next time tell them exactly what you want.

It's not petty to complain, it's illegal to sell fresh food beyond it's use by date, and presumably this also applies to deliveries. How the heck has milk been sitting around a supermarket for over a week when it's been flying off the shelves?

The one and only time I've had home delivery from Sainsburys they delivered milk with a date of about 2 days left on it. The service is barely fit for purpose and you'd only use it if you don't have much choice about it.

Definitely complain and tell them you want it replacing today or tomorrow. If they had half decent customer service, the manager would phone you to apologise in person.

One day's date on things like coleslaw isn't really acceptable either - most people would want a few days to be able to use this sort of stuff.

Why on earth should op suck it up? Of course complain - this is Sainsburys not a small, struggling independent shop.

I've complained to Tesco about almost out of date products and been given a refund. If you have a look on their website it may say +4 for example next to the item which means it should have a use by/best before of at least 4 days freshness. It's not ideal as you won't have the items you want but better than nothing. Freeze the milk it'll be fine

I complained to Tesco last week as they had sent stuff that was mouldy and had to be binned. Most of the meat was use by the next day. They refunded the items I complained about.