A-Okay To Change Sell-By Date On Expired Meat, Says New York State [UPDATED]

*Story updated below with official comment from D'Artagnan on relabeling of its expired products*

You know those nifty "sell-by" tags on food that seem like they're there for your safety and to separate our 21st Century grocery stores from, say, medieval street fairs? Well, it turns out they're not for you. Evidently, they're for the convenience of the store owner, according to this unsettling report in the Brooklyn Paper.

An angry customer of a Brooklyn Heights Key Food pointed out that store store placed a newer "sell-by" tag over an expired, 11-day old one on a (spoiled) D'Artagnan chicken.

If that wasn't unsettling enough, state officials at New York's Department of Agriculture and Markets seem pretty lax about the whole thing:

"'Sell by' dates are nothing but a tool for store managers," said Jessica Ziehm, spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture and Markets that inspected the Key Food after Viljoen's claims. "It's not illegal to re-date or re-package, though they're still required to sell safe, wholesome products. We went there and found no problems."

Ziehm said the department followed up on Viljoen's May 13 claim mainly because her chicken had spoiled -- but inspectors couldn't find any "critical deficiencies" in the store's practices at that time.

Other angry Key Foods customers have come out of the woodwork. One customer posted a comical-if-it-wasn't-criminal picture of a package labeled "Fresh Octopus" that clearly contained imitation crab meat, and perhaps more.

UPDATE, 6/3/2010, 2:22pm: Reached for comment, D'Artagnan spokesperson Lily Hodge said:

"When made aware of the situation we immediately contacted the store in question. The very reason D'Artagnan puts dates on products in the first place is to preempt such practices."

Comments

[kurtvb]

01:13 PM on 06/08/2010

Once again, a policy or regulation that puts business before the safety of the people. I say boycott that company, any any company that uses this practice. The start writing you reps and flood them with mail, e-mail, and calls. As a New Yorker, my e-mails go out after I write this.

[Donna McGregor]

09:44 PM on 06/07/2010

That is utterly revolting. How can this be ok? Shame on you New York.

[marik]

11:07 AM on 06/07/2010

This is irresponsible behavior, both on the part of the NY Dept. of Agriculture and the stores. In these days where lots of people have no health insurance, who is responsible if people get sick? Do they even bother checking the condition of the produce before relabelling?

[colamonkey]

01:32 PM on 06/05/2010

How does that store stay open? Why do people shop there? Do they have no where else to go?

[Paul108]

07:46 PM on 06/04/2010

If an animal was slaughtered for no reason other than your taste for blood and flesh, the least you can do is eat the meat even if it's a little rotten.

[colamonkey]

01:35 PM on 06/05/2010

Nah, they aren't slaughtered just for taste. Don't forget nutrition.

The least the grocery store and the government can do is ensure a safe food supply.


I'm lucky I don't have to shop at those kinds of places.

[commonsense333]

02:17 PM on 06/09/2010

Why do you feel the need to bring your vegetarian views into this discussion? This doesn't have anything to do with vegetarianism, so go find a post that does and put your opinion on that one. Better yet, all you veggie people should just be quiet, us meat eaters don't force our opinions on you, so leave us alone. Besides, why in the heck do you think there are animals on this planet to begin with? They are their to EAT!!!!.

[Miss Trust]

07:14 PM on 06/04/2010

Relabeling has happened here in Germany a couple of times as well and involved major grocery chains. I'd also be super careful when buying marinated meat. That trick has been used here in order to cover up the bad smell of rotten meat.
BTW, when rotten food does get uncovered, we Germans are not informed about the names of the places, brands, etc. that have sold the rotten stuff. The government agency involved does not disclose these details. The relabeling that I mentioned above was actually discovered by undercover news shows.

[DevonTexas]

12:37 PM on 06/04/2010

Is nothing sacred?

[breakingpoint]

05:56 AM on 06/04/2010

criminal.

this isn't China

[Ascoli]

06:10 AM on 06/04/2010

It's worse than China

[1differentdrummer]

10:33 AM on 06/05/2010

What's keeping you here?

[rayinprague]

04:26 AM on 06/04/2010

Food law really needs to be reformed so people know what they are eating. It is another industry where the producers write their own regulations and then ignore those regulations without penalty. Relabeling has been going on for decades in many states. Stores almost never dispose of food, they process it some way until they can sell it.

[pinkeyelemonade]

04:06 AM on 06/04/2010

I'm so glad The Greatest Country In The World cares enough about its citizens to grant companies enough libertiy to make their own decisions. The best thing about democrazy is the freedom of our meat vendors to completely ignore human health and safety in order to save a few cents. Top notch.

[Wendy Johnson]

08:02 AM on 06/04/2010

x2 But don't forget, you should mention free market somewhere in there. And if you can pull in an analogy that uses guns, like Rand Paul, it's extra points.

[Bike Commuter]

11:04 AM on 06/04/2010

Absolutely. I mean consumers always have the right to buy from someone else if they don't like the spoiled meat. Well, the ones who die from food poisoning can't go somewhere else, but other people can. That is what the free market is all about, right?

[JohnDrake6]

02:32 AM on 06/04/2010

One of the Denver papers ran a series of articles on E. coli-tainted beef after a Colorado meat plant had to recall 18 tons of it in 2002.

It turns out that a meat packer does not have to tell the government to whom the tainted beef was sold unless the government agrees not to release that information to the public (supposedly to protect proprietary information).

It was also revealed that when recalled beef is returned to the packer it can be cooked and re-sold to go into products that use cooked meat, such as canned spaghetti, tv dinners, etc.

I thought that no food company would risk their reputation on buying cooked tainted-beef, then I discovered that the company that owned the meat plant also made canned spaghetti, tv dinners, etc.

Bon Appetit.

[pinkeyelemonade]

03:59 AM on 06/04/2010

That is absolutely terrifying.

[Bike Commuter]

11:06 AM on 06/04/2010

Is your last line meant to be sarcastic, or were you giving the name of the company that owned the meat plant?

[JohnDrake6]

04:11 PM on 06/04/2010

I didn't want to mention the company name until I could double check it today.

The company that had the 2002 recall was ConAgra.

They own a number of other companies that use cooked beef in their products, including Chef Boyardee (Ravioli, Spaghetti), Manwich, and both Healthy Choice and Marie Calendar's frozen dinners.

I was WAY LOW on the amount of tainted beef: it was 19 MILLION POUNDS, not 18 tons.

It happened in June/July 2002.

Using the NY Times advanced search for the range 1/1/2002 - 1/1/2003 found a number of articles on that specific recall, here are a couple of links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/20/business/business-digest-094609.html?scp=26&sq=%27tainted+beef%27&st=nyt

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/22/us/where-the-slaughterhouse-ruled-a-recall-and-a-shift-in-the-wind.html?scp=21&sq=%27tainted+beef%27&st=nyt

[JohnDrake6]

04:21 PM on 06/04/2010

A search by date of the Denver Post found abstracts of past articles (fee for full text):

[William Young]

02:17 AM on 06/04/2010

Can we say lawsuit, where's the FDA? I thought this was their job to make sure we as consumers got fresh foods? This is sick and should be criminal.

[aspiecelia]

02:02 AM on 06/04/2010

This practice has been going on since the Reagan era began the deregulation process. It included the major grocery chains like Safeway. They now all get their meat mostly pre-processed from meat plants. We have no idea how long the meat was at the plant before it was wrapped.

[WhatDaBleep]

02:00 AM on 06/04/2010

Just another case of government protecting businesses and not the people - and wow - its in New York - the state that seems to cause 90% of America's problems to start with.

[thereisonlyoneparty]

01:10 AM on 06/04/2010

Gather 'round, it's time for another one of my stories about how awful Americans are.

This one comes from family.

My younger brother lives at home and when speaking with my mother she tells me that he will not eat anything near the "sell by" or "best by" or whatever "by" date. His logic is that even if it is still good, it is probably not because the date would not lie.

It goes to show how used to luxury and surplus Americans are. People who have never been hungry (missing lunch is not "hungry") can toss out good food because of a few characters stamped on the package. (You vegetarians and vegans are no better. You give up entire food groups because you culture allows you to have that luxury.)

It is really a great thing when it comes to survival and stuff, but not so great when you think of it in a moral/ethical way.

I am not looking down on people here either. I throw away loads of food (though I compost a significant portion too, so it is not just wasted in its waste state). It is just something to consider. And feel guilty about.

[Brautigan]

01:43 AM on 06/04/2010

I know many people don't have the luxury of having a decent grocery store near them all the time as I do, but as someone who does have that luxury, I'll tell you I never buy a bunch of stuff I might not eat. I always buy what I'm going to eat, and eat what I buy. But then, I go to the store pretty much daily.

[pinkeyelemonade]

04:03 AM on 06/04/2010

Several less-wealthy countries house vegetarians and vegans.

[thereisonlyoneparty]

08:19 AM on 06/04/2010

No shit.

Even the poorest country has a wealthy class that can make luxury choices when it comes to food.

That does not mean that everyone can do it.