[LionessMum]

I bought some baby food pouches at the supermarket on Friday, and on Sunday I opened it up and went to feed it to my son. It looked different to what it normally does, so I checked the expiry date and it was March 2012. Over 9 months ago! Of course I plan to take it back, but my DH thinks I should notify the council or the health department so the supermarket is more careful in dealing with their stock.

What would you do? I would hate for someone else to feed it to their 4 month old with noticing and making the baby very sick. My DH said it was lucky I was doing the feeding, because he would never have checked.

[beaglebaby]

Ewww, if it was just over it's date I'd just return it and ask for a refund, but 10 months is ridiculously poor stock control so I'd also be talking to either the store manager or the health dept at your local council. I had to do that when I bought some meat and discovered they had relabelled it with a later expiry date, the guy was great, he went and spoke to the supermarket and discussed their stock control and staff training and let me know that they had followed up.

[Jemstar]

I think you would need to contact your local council as they manage local health issues such as this I believe. I think I wild raise it, 10 months is a bit rich! I would probably contact the retailer as well.

[mummabubba]

Just return it and ask what the process is? I'm sure they will ply you with lovely goodies...

[Pooks*potters]

You know the food was probably still ok. But not really the point. I would report it to council and call the store after I had so they can action it ASAP. People like me don't check use by dates on nothing but fridge stuff.

[Rachaelxxx]

I would just phone the store and let them know if it was me. Not really good enough though is it to be that far out of date.

[LionessMum]

Just to update, I phoned the Health Office of my local council and they said it is not illegal to sell food past it's 'best before' date (which is what is on the pouches) as it is a quality issue rather than a safety issue. I went back to the supermarket today and asked to speak to the manager. He was quite shocked and apologetic and refunded the items straight away plus he went to the baby food aisle personally, checked the dates on the stock there, and gave me an extra 5 pouches which are fresh.
I'm glad to hear that the pouches are unlikely to be dangerous to babies, as that was my greatest concern.

[elmo_mum]

supermarkets dont sell out of date stock?
im shocked!!!


i cant belive you called the health department! really???
yea, 9 months is pretty bad, but its slack... thats all!!

no one got ill nor sick

most supermarkets are pretty good - they will replace the goods, and also refund any $$ - receipt or no receipt!

just make sure you double check next time!

[snortle]

Thats slack of them.
I check EVERYTHING now since this time last year I found a block of cheese that expired in Oct 2010 on the shelf for sale! There was more than one block with the same date so must have been from the same batch. Disgusting.