AIBU or have I been broken by lemon mousse?!

[IThinkILoveAI]

I wasn’t feeling great yesterday but had to pop into M&S to pick up a few things.

I bought a four pack of lemon mousse and it wasn’t until I got to work and started to feel a bit better that I noticed the use by date was yesterday.

I sent an email to customer services and they basically told me it was my fault. Now I know I should have checked the use by date but as I said, I wasn’t feeling well. I don’t think customers should really be expected to eat 4 full price mousses in one day.

AIBU? Happy to be told I am and as I said, I acknowledge that I should have checked the use by date. It just feels wrong to me, as the products weren’t cheap!

I had this with m&s I was 7 weeks pregnant and had a craving for taramasalata. Checked with Nurse at GP yep no problem off you go and buy some. Went to posh m&s came home it was 4 days out of date! Took it back upset because PFB and hormones and got a really good response got some free food and £50 voucher. This was because of 1 decent manager the rest of the staff were rude and unhelpful. In your case i would just eat 4 lemon mousses in 1 day 😁😁

It is frustrating, but I'm afraid I don't think you've got a case here. If the products had actually been out of date, then yes. The thing is, they were in date and you could easily have been buying them for a family of 4, in which case they would all have been eaten on the day of purchase.

Having said that, most shops seem to knock a bit off the price when the item is nearly at the expiry date, so I would be a bit annoyed at paying full price for something that expires the same day. Plus the money off stickers alert me to the fact too, and I can avoid them if I want a longer expiry date, so definitely annoying they didn't do this.

Sorry my point is m&s clearly aren't as good at stock checking as other shops!

I think this is more my fault. I was wanting the 4 mousses to last all week as my treats. So I should have checked the use by date if it was important to me.

I guess I’m just more frustrated that what is (to most people anyway) a higher end food store, is selling food at full price the day of its use by date.

They technically haven't done anything wrong, as they can sell up to the end of that date but they should have a reduction policy in place so things that are unreasonable to eat in a day such as yoghurt, butter or cheese should be reduced at least a week before so dates can be spotted and customers aren't inconvenienced. At least that's what we did when I worked in a food store. Also helps staff pick up on out of dates so they're not left on shelf. At the minimum the store should have reduced them that day.

Happened to me once with chicken. I went to use it the next day and it was out of date. No joy when I took it back and complained either

I think the other thing which annoyed me was the tone of the email that I received from M&S customer services.

Anyway, I have learned a lesson and will be less inclined to shop there from now on.

I would be frustrated too - most shops would have marked the price down. If it’s any consolation the mousses are probably ok to eat for a couple more days as long as they’ve been refrigerated and look and smell fine.

Not the point, but I’d eat them anyway!

Same thing happened to me with a roast lamb thing from there but I bought it later at night from a late opening store in motorway services or something. It went out of date a couple of hours later! No reduced sticker either. Emailed customer services and was told it was all my own fault. It was but I'd think it would be unusual to assume someone was going to cook a roast dinner at midnight. A money off sticker would have been good

It's annoying they weren't reduced but use your common sense with best before dates - the mousses will probably be fine for a few more days. They don't magically become inedible at the stroke of midnight on the BBD so please don't bin them without checking if they are ok or not!

I had this with a birthday cake from there. Didn’t occur to me that it would have less than a week of date on it. They wouldn’t budge.
(Cake was obviously fine, and we ate it, but I’m thinking it might have been a bit dried out by the time I needed it, a few days later.)

What are they supposed to do? Check you've got another 3 people to help you eat them on the day? Yabvu

I know its not the point and can understand it's annoying but if its just a lemon mousse is be happy to eat them over the next few days anyway if it were me! Obviously I wouldn't do that with something like chicken.

They'll be pasteurized anyway, I'd eat them one a day without a second thought.

I always check the use by date, but that’s because they normally shove all the short date ones at the front and the nicer, fresher ones are nestling behind - so I get one of them instead.

If you think they would survive freezing you could stick 3 of them in the deepfreeze and thaw them one by one to eat over the week.

You could point out that e.g. Waitrose* are happy to refund you and look again at their discount stickering policy, and that if M&S really want to lose customers and go the way of Woolworths then they're going exactly the right way about it.

Take a copy of snotty customer services e-mail and send it with your note outlining these points to the CEO.

*or Tesco or Sainsburys or whoever.

So you didn't look at the date and somehow it's the shops fault?

You know that a mousse will be fine days (or probably weeks) out of date, so you don't have to eat them all today anyway.

It doesn't turn into toxic sludge at 0001 the day after the date is up.