Originally posted by: tcsenter
They are investigating, that MOST supermarket chains redate the meat and fish from 1-7 days from the original sell by date...To me thats kinda sick because when i am paying for meat thats fresh, i expect it to be fresh, and not redated and old..
Yeah, I saw the same report, and it was a bit misleading.
The idea was that you're getting meat that is "old" or "unsafe" or "not fresh", when that is not always the case. Just because meat has not sold by the "sell by" date, does NOT mean the meat is suddenly 'old' and 'not fresh', when the day before the meat was perfectly alright. It isn't that simple because meat doesn't 'go bad' that quickly.
Just how long meat will stay fresh and sellable is dependent upon a number of factors. A friend of mine has worked in the meat industry for years, from small butchers and meat markets to the big supermarket chains. A few times every week, he pulls all the meat that has reached the 'sell by' date, and when he inspected the meat, some of the packages are perfectly fresh and in sellable condition and some packages are too near the end of their shelf-life. A knowledgable and experienced meat handler or butcher can tell the difference and judge how fresh meat is and estimate how much longer it will be safe to put back on the shelf.
It doesn't make any sense at all to throw out perfectly good meat that will be safe to put back on the shelf for a few more days, just because it reached the 'sell by' date. The USDA's guidelines for meat retailers concerning shelf-life are deliberately conservative in order to error on the side of safety. If followed to the letter, the result would be and is a lot of perfectly good meat being thrown away.
Of course, the problem is that employees may repackage or redate meat that should not be, either because they're too inexperienced or uninformed to properly judge the freshness of meat, or because of pressure to avoid loss of money in an industry where profit margins are very thin. But, these issues would exist whether or not laws and regulations were more strict about repackaging or redating meat.
I don't have any problem with meat that is still fresh being repackaged or redated. My problem is that there is pressure to hide the practice and mislead consumers. I used to patron an independent meat market where the butcher would not try to hide the fact that he repackaged or dated meat that he determined to still be fresh. There was a specific section of the display cooler where he would put all the meat that had been repackaged and he marked the price down by 20% or more.
That is the way ALL meat retailers should be allowed and encouraged to conduct their business.