To have expected a better response from big supermarket regarding out of date food?

[Pollony]

I bought some bacon from aldi last friday and on Sunday, after I had eated some, realised it was 4 days out of date on purchase so almost a week out of date when I ate it.

I emailed customer services to inform them because I think its pretty dangerous to be selling out of date food, I realise that with bacon I'm ok and it probably wouldnt have hurt me but my point was what if it wasnt bacon and was fish or soft cheese or something and somebody didnt realise they could end up seriously ill, I have a 3 year old and I just keep thinking what if I had fed it to them instead?

I said that in my email. I also included pictures of the bacon, the recipt and the barcode off the back so they had proof I wasnt lieing. I didn't want anything more than an apology and them to be aware so that it couldn't happen to someone else.

I got my reply today (almost a week later again) and there was no apology, there was nothing except an outline of there checking policy which to me felt like they were insinuating that it couldn't possibly have happened and a note on the end saying if I returned the bacon to store I could get a refund. Why would I have kept bacon that by this point would be 2 weeks out of date?

AIBU to think that A) they should be taking this more seriously and B) to have expected some sort of apology?

I think they should have sent you an apology and a voucher.

I bought yogurts once from Morrison's and when I got home realised they were out of date. Took them back next day and swapped them. I think this is usually a better approach them emailing the head office.

The staff are humans, they make mistakes sometimes. In 8 years of shopping at that shop it's happened once. Let it go.

I couldn't get wound up about something like this. The staff are humans and humans err.
We have a safety net in place in the form of ourselves.

Oh and out of date bacon is probably one of the least harmful things you could consume.

They should have apologised but I'd let it go
Don't you check the dates yourself when you're shopping.?

That bacon would have been absolutely fine to eat for probably another two weeks, at least.

(Which isn’t to say that selling it to you past the date was ok, just letting you know that it’s really not a big deal).

You should have just taken it back to the shop with your receipt and got a refund or replacement.

With the current situation I didnt really want to drive back to store just to swap some bacon, like I said I'm not bothered about the money it was never about the refund and I understand people are human I dont want someone in trouble I just wanted to make them aware so it doesnt happen to someone else.

Given all the issues supermarkets are currently facing, It’s hardly surprising that the odd product gets missed when they date check. I am amazed you didn’t notice when you picked it up, or when you opened the pack to cook it. Use by dates are always pretty prominent, I would never put meat in my trolley without checking the date on it, let alone cook it. They are unlikely to apologise as that admits fault and leaves them open to you coming back later and claiming you were ill.

Human error occurs sometimes. It doesn’t mean their checking procedures are inadequate (if they were, this problem would occur all the time rather than very occasionally). I expect they send you a copy of the procedure to reassure you that they do have one, rather than because they didn’t believe you.

Next time if you take the product back to the shop they will replace it for you. In the meantime, be reassured that the human nose is very adept at smelling when food is off - between that and checking the dates on packaging before you cook food, you can protect yourself very effectively.

I had a similar experience with Aldi, except I didn't even get a reply to my email.

Its a pain but it happens unfortunately. I always check the dates before I buy anything (partly for meal planning as well as checking it’s in date) and if I find anything off I let the staff know.
I think it depends on the supermarket too, I recently bought some green beans from Tesco which when I opened were fuzzy and mouldy. Sent them a pic of them/the packaging/my receipt and they sent me a voucher for the price. Aldi might have a less robust policy.

It happens all he time, honestly. No, it's not ideal but supermarkets have millions of items that need date-checking - it's only normal that sometimes things get missed.

It's really not something worth writing to head office over. Either right off the money (as you didn't date check it yourself when you bought it) or take it back and swap it. It's no big deal.

I bought biscuits that were out of date so took them back to Asda and got my money back. Two days later those biscuits were back on the shelf.

I bought biscuits that were out of date so took them back to Asda and got my money back. Two days later those biscuits were back on the shelf.

What did the customer service say?

I'm not sure why you didn't check the date when you bought it or even on opening. I would not have gone to head office about this and I would've accepted responsibility for my actions.

yanbu- it’s illegal to sell food past it’s eat by date- best before is a little different, but food has an eat by date for a reason. Supermarkets can be fined for breaching this, so need to take it seriously.

They do take it seriously. It still happens from time to time due to human error and people should still be responsible for their own health and safety and capable of checking dates on a food item they’re about to cook. We’re not toddlers. We’re adults with agency.

It’s usually safe to eat foods which are past their sell by date, particularly biscuits.

You are being unreasonable for saying ‘eated.’

Customer services aren't really the right people unless this was a regular occurrence at a specific branch. Basically a member of staff didn't rotate the dates. That's usually either genuine error - a one off mistake or lack of training and the staff member didn't understand or know their job. Contacting the store direct with day/time etc of when you made the purchase and the manager would probably be able to figure out exactly which staff member could be responsible and that person can be spoken too. By going through customer services in order to get the message down to the actual person who stocked the shelves would take ages and go through dozens of people. They could say sorry and give you a voucher but that doesn't mean that Bob the shelf stacker is aware of the mistake.

YANBU op, they shouldn’t have sent such a poor response. My local Spar has an in-shop butcher and a large fridge where they sell varied meat products, there’s usually an offer on like 5 items for £10.00 and this includes chicken breasts, bacon etc so I sent my husband to pick up some groceries inc the chicken breast and like a plonker he came back with the meat but didn’t check the date. It expired on the 29th ... we bought it on the 28th 🤨 I opened it and the smell was absolutely awful, I’m not a sensitive little petal but honestly it was like boiled sewage. They keep putting out bad meat so we don’t bother anymore.

You still had the receipt for last Friday's shop?

I found an out of date chicken in sainsburys last week. Handed to nearby staff member and took another one. Mistakes do happen.

Similar happened to me at Aldi but pre packed vegetables.
They were well in date, I opened them the day after I bought them and they were brown and slimy .
Contacted Aldi and sent photos and had a similar response.
They'd refund if I took the veg back to the shop but that was it.

@Laaalaaaa