Here’s some inconvenient truths about “expired food”. (That’s a misleading, unofficial definition, for starters, but I’ll get there) Most unrefrigerated food is perfectly safe to eat when it’s past its best-before date.
Tinned foods and dry food such as pasta, maize meal, packet soups, rice, biscuits and cereals don’t become toxic, “rubbish”, dangerous, unsafe — or any of the other emotive words consumers bandy about on social media — the day after the best-before date.
They gradually become less flavour intense, less crispy or the colour may fade. In other words, it’s a quality issue — nothing to do with safety.
Tinned food, in particular, has proved to be perfectly safe to eat years after its best-before date, in some cases, provided the tin is not damaged.
Here’s the thing. It is not illegal to sell such shelf-stable food past its best-before date, as long as the date has not been removed or altered. Ideally, they should be sold at discounted prices because, based on the manufacturer’s recommendation, they are slightly past their prime.
Several retail shops, such as the Foodies chain, specialise in selling food just on or just past its best-before dates at heavily discount prices. Consumers get to buy perfectly safe food at really good prices and food waste — a global concern — is reduced. Win win.
But many a police officer and municipal official, ignorant of the legal position, has raided shops and confiscated “expired” food which is perfectly safe and perfectly legal to sell. It’s outrageous.
Last week, a woman I’ll call Nicky, who owns a supermarket in a small KwaZulu-Natal town, wrote to me about her recent experience.
“A few weeks ago a group of about 25 people, most of whom did not introduce themselves or wear identification badges, stormed into the shop and ‘confiscated’ food items such as cold drinks, sweets, oats and dried foods, saying they were past their best-before dates.
“One guy told me he was ‘from the municipality’.
“None of them could give me an explanation of the difference between best-before and expiry dates.”
What Nicky meant by “expiry dates” was use-by dates which appear on perishable goods such as meat and dairy — food kept in a fridge.
SA’s food labelling regulations — issued by the department of health — make it illegal to sell such food past its use-by dates.
Perfectly fine to eat, generously discounted food that’s slightly past its prime could be a major win for increasingly food insecure South Africans. The practice should be applauded, not condemned
That’s because, as the term indicates, such food much be consumed by that date because after that date it is likely to “spoil”, which presents a health risk. Shelf-stable food products sold just beyond their best-before dates present no so such risk, which is why it’s not illegal to sell them.
One can forgive consumers for fixating on a food’s “expiry date” — correctly named a date mark — and assuming it’s unsafe thereafter without making a distinction between a best-before date on a bag of flour and a use-by date on a pack of meat.
But a public official? That’s inexcusable. And if Nicky’s version of events is correct, it’s plain theft, whoever they were.
“I don’t believe they had the right to put R2,000 worth of goods into a trolley and leave with it — especially as they left me with no documentation,” she said.
“When I protested they said I was being ‘hardegat' and threatened to close down my shop.
“I want to open a case at the SAPS for theft, but the police officer who attended the raid just pulled up his shoulders and did nothing to assist me.”
And this is the second time Nicky has experienced such a “raid”.
Asked how she merchandises her food products past their best-before dates, she said she sold them at discounted prices on a separate shelf. “But they didn’t only remove those foods,” she said. “They took from the main shelves too.”
And what became of that food? I am going to do my best to find out but I don’t rate my chances.
I don’t condone food past its best-before date being sold at full price in the hope that customers won’t notice. That’s a consumer-unfriendly practice. But perfectly fine to eat, generously discounted food that’s slightly past its prime could be a major win for increasingly food insecure South Africans.
The practice should be applauded, not condemned.
And raiding retailers, effectively stealing goods they are legally entitled to sell, is unconscionable. The ignorance is staggering.
At a National Consumer Commission meeting on food labelling in Pretoria in 2015, a senior official expressed concern that retailers stocked goods close to their “expiry” dates, thus expecting consumers to eat a large amount of product in a short time, such as a tin of jam or tinned fish.
When the then Consumer Goods and Services Ombud stood up to suggest, given that an alarming number of South Africans are food insecure, there was merit in selling certain non-perishable food products beyond their best-before dates at discounted prices with full disclosure about the date mark and assurances about it remaining safe for consumption, several delegates reacted with fury, saying it was unconscionable to condone the selling of “rotten” food to the poor.
Sadly, that skewed perception remains. Knowledge is power. In this case, for those who are battling to feed themselves it could be sustenance. For goodness sake, let’s spread the word.
We clearly can’t rely on the authorities to do it.
