Taking the fresher stuff from the back of the shelf

In My Humble Opinion
21

Then the wholesaler eats the cost, which eventually you still pay for with higher prices. Even if they don’t toss the milk (or whatever), they’ll be using it for some lower-value item, like animal feed or something. It’s waste, and the cost of waste always makes it back to the consumer one way or another.

Not true of my local Wal-Mart, which regularly runs out of half-gallons of whole milk. I half-wonder if this is an intentional ploy to clear the shelves of nearly-expiring stuff before loading the fresh ones.

22

They’d stock less at a time, and rotate it faster. That way, there’s not a several-day difference between the back of the rack and the front and all of the milk will have sufficiently distant dates.

They’ll absolutely figure out that milk with less than say… 4 days left just doesn’t sell, and that they’re constantly having to dispose of it, which is just money lost. Nobody has any interest in having waste institutionalized because of non-optimal stocking practices, so if that happened enough, they’d adjust to prevent the waste.

23

That’s moving the goalposts. The question is about always getting the freshest stuff possible. If there’s even a single-day difference between dates, and everyone always picks the most distant date, and there is always stock, then some of it will be unsellable and eventually expire.

If a sufficiently small number of people do this, then the system can absorb it (though they are decreasing the average freshness for everyone else, which is mildly jerkish behavior). Just not if everyone does it, unless the store flushes out the old stock regularly (which I think might happen sometimes). But that comes with its own annoyances.

24

IMO shopping is partly a game. They’re trying to get us to buy things and we’re trying to get the best value for our money. So yes, I’ll look at expiration dates and pick from the back. But also, it’s on the market to know how much to buy and stock etc.

We buy the big pound size plastic box of lettuce mix, for instance. I’m not going to buy one that expires tomorrow when I know it will take us a week to eat it. That has literally happened, and once, I left without lettuce mix because everything was on the cusp.

25

I don’t see how anyone’s obligated to buy the soonest-expiring products, just to save the store the hassle? Or for that matter, NOT buying the furthest-expiring stuff to save the store some trouble? If they don’t want customers doing that, they need to adjust in some fashion. And if enough do it, they’ll adjust faster and probably in a more meaningful way (i.e. not just stocking soon-to-expire stuff).

In my experience it’s never one day, but several. Enough to make it worthwhile if I don’t expect to chug through it before the shorter expiration date.

I mean, nobody expects you to take produce that’s riper- you can get the specific items you want. Why is something like milk any different?

26

No one’s obligated to do anything. I’m just explaining my reasoning as to why I think it’s mildly jerkish behavior. It’s mild because the problem is somewhat theoretical: as long as some people just pick from the front, the system works, because they continually clear out the oldest items. Above some threshold though, you get waste, regardless of what the store does. And waste increases everyone’s costs.

To be clear, I don’t begrudge anyone for avoiding items with an expiration inside their expected use timeframe. Doing otherwise would also be wasteful. But unconditionally always picking from the back, regardless of whether it makes a difference to you, is somewhat lame, IMO. Like using a handicap parking placard that hasn’t yet expired, but you no longer need because you’re fully healed. Maybe it doesn’t matter most of the time, and you certainly have the right to use it, but under some conditions you will be preventing use by someone that actually does need it.

27

[edited to add - I wholeheartedly endorse @Dr.Strangelove’s last post which puts it better than I do below and gets the balance right IMHO]

[my emphasis]

Firstly this is unlikely to be true all or maybe even much of the time. Wholesalers are unlikely to agree to underwrite retailers’ stocking estimates.

Secondly, are wholesalers not someone? Are they just sufficiently removed from your monkeysphere they are non-entities and so don’t count?

For various reasons that others have stated, this is probably all mostly harmless, but every convenience comes at a cost and it all usually comes back on the consumer. If sufficient people refused to buy any but the freshest stock, the result would be one of a few things - the store would have to throw more away or the store would have to only display the oldest stock to prevent people taking fresher.

Both would come at a cost - waste in the first case, and more staff to re-stock more often in the second case.

Ultimately, the greatest benefit to the community overall is for there to be the least inefficiency and waste. Given the mix of needs as outline by several people here, I don’t see the practice outlined by the OP as being an issue. But it would be if everyone did it so I would only do it where there is a real need, as opposed to just for the sake of it.

28

I’m glad I’m not alone on this one :slight_smile: . I think there are probably numerous examples of this kind of thing, where one group of people is doing something that wouldn’t work well if everyone did it, but a smaller group of people pick up the slack and effectively keep things moving smoothly. Therefore it ends up not a big deal and the first group barely perceives there’s a problem.

29

No, not as set out.

I’d say you have pushed the contract a bit if you know you’re going to use it all up today, though. Then there’s no need to get the longest-expiring one.

30

On the scale of violating the social contract, taking stuff from the back of the shelf is worse than taking the closest parking space to the front door but not as bad as picking all the m&ms out of a bowl of trail mix.

31

I don’t trust the dates they print on the boxes. I always open a few boxes, taste the contents to see which one is freshest, and put the ones I don’t want back. Of course, I make sure there’s nobody within 6 feet while I do this for COVID safety.

32

My take on it…

The product is on the shelf, the store expects to sell it. As the customer picks products off the shelf then the customer is entitled to select whichever item they want - and if that’s the freshest pack at the back then so be it.

The argument that, if everyone is picking the freshest item from the back, the ‘older’ items at the front won’t sell doesn’t hold water - If you’re a ‘must get freshest’ shopper then you still pick the freshest from those available. If all items have the same date then you just have a choice of 1 and you’re not going to pass just because all the dates are the same, keeping in mind they’re all still within the use by/best before dates.

Best example; mushrooms, and most packaged veg, are usually displayed in small crates 2 deep on the shelf. The crate under is usually dated a day (or sometimes 2) later than the crate on top. I have no problem lifting the top crate to get a pack from the lower.

Now for something really contentious - meat packed in cardboard boxes… thinking of frozen BBQ ribs in particular here. You cannot see the product. Ribs are a natural product (hopefully) and no 2 packs are the same. So what do you do? Take a pack on spec? What if it’s one of those that taper off towards one end - I’ve seen packs where the last few ribs were literally 1" long, or another time most of the weight of the pack was a big glob of fat.

These get opened and I check. If I’m not happy with the contents it goes back in the freezer and I’ll open another. But that’s the limit :slight_smile:

33

Which doesn’t include the old stuff, assuming there is new stock available. Hence the old stuff will be thrown out.

Let’s suppose the supermarket gets absolutely fresh milk that they restock every day. On the first of the month they fill the rack with 50 gallons dated the 14th. They do a decent job predicting demand and 80% of it is sold. The day ends with 10 gallons dated the 14th. They restock that night by adding 40 gallons dated the 15th.

The next day, since everyone buys the absolute freshest, they buy the milk dated the 15th, leaving 10 gallons dated the 14th. Maybe demand is a little higher that day, and so they sell 45 gallons total. There are still 5 gallons left dated the 14th.

The next day, the process repeats. People buy the milk dated the 16th. Because the store never lets the shelves completely empty, those 5 gallons dated the 14th stick around forever. Until they actually expire and the store tosses them or somehow uses them for another purpose.

34

I can’t really reconcile my comment that “… you still pick the freshest from those available” and

Of course picking from the available stock includes a choice from the oldest stuff. You’re still free to pick the freshest.

Eventually there will only be 1 date left and then it’s down to the shopper if products with that date are still acceptable - if not then that’s when stuff starts appearing on the reduced shelf.

Different points of view, that’s all. The sun will still rise in the South in the morning and set in the East in the evening tomorrow…

ETA: Just because 5 gallons dated the 14th don’t sell on the first day does not mean they will not sell the next… A lot of people don’t even bother to check dates - and that’s why the older items in front will go.

35

Not always. In any case, what’s left will always be the oldest stock or nearly so. If the store doesn’t let it run out completely, then it will persist forever until thrown out.

Yes. Hence, the people who unconditionally pick the freshest stuff are depending on those who just buy the stuff in front to keep things cycling properly. That’s why it’s being mildly selfish.

Any behavior that would result in bad outcomes if everyone did it is at least mildly selfish. Behaviors that result in bad outcomes if even a few people do it (like littering) are extremely selfish. This isn’t one of those. But still, it would be nicer if people just picked stuff that was a little farther out than their needs, instead of always picking the stuff as far out as possible.

36

OK, I’m selfish.

37

The thread in question : link .

38

Yes, this is a social dilemma, and @Dr.Strangelove’s analysis is correct. A lot of the people in this thread seem to miss the whole point of what you’re saying, and so a lot of replies are just “but this is why it’s to my advantage to pick the freshest” - yes, we know, that’s baked into the premise.

If everyone acted in this manner, then we’re all worse off. That’s a social dilemma. Usually resources can support a number of selfish actors without collapsing or getting worse for everyone, but that doesn’t mean that those people aren’t being selfish.

No matter how you look at it, if everyone always picked the freshest option, it would lead to waste. You have a batch of 10 milks that expire in 14 days, and a batch of 10 that expire in 15 days. Everyone picks the ones that expire in 15 days, because it’s a little bit better for them. So there’s a restock, the next day, and those original milks are there, now expiring in 13 days, and a new batch, now expiring in 15 days. Everyone picks from the new batch. Eventually, those 10 milks will have to be thrown out, even though they would’ve been used had people decided not to maximize their own gain at the expensive of everyone else.

And saying “oh well the wholesaler eats that cost” is just a very weak rationalization. So what? Someone is eating that cost, whether it’s the store or the wholesaler, it’s like you’re just wishing it away by suggesting that it’s okay if it’s suffered by an entity one tier up. That cost eventually costs everyone, and more importantly, it’s waste. Some animal suffered to generate that milk. Water, land, food, gas, and human effort were spent to get that milk to market. Having it go to waste is an objectively bad thing.

And when you suggest that the grocery store should adapt by haivng less stock or some other solution, you’re essentially saying that “it’s their fault for creating an exploitable system, not me for exploiting it”, which is selfish rationaization. Sure, they could have a guy standing at every dated product handing out the one with the nearest expiration date - that would stop this exploitation, but it would also be a waste of human time. Same with smaller stock and more frequent restocking. Now human effort is being wasted to police you from selfishly exploiting a system. That makes you the bad guy, not them.

So, in the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively minor transgression. There are few enough exploiters that the resource will generally not suffer for it. The OP correctly identifies it as being a “minor selfish jerk.” But this absolutely is a social dilemma and exactly the same sort of mentality that leads to other, more important social dilemmas that cause real problems.

39

Moderator Note

While putting down your own ethnicity obviously isn’t as offensive as an outsider doing it, please refrain from using phrases like this. Race and ethnicity aren’t always obvious on a message board, so phrases like this can lead to misunderstandings and even when the ethnicity is understood it can make the conversation a bit awkward.

40

Point taken.

However, the comment (here and when made at home) was a sarcastic rejoinder to the original Dope reference, not a putdown of my heritage.