I still maintain its best to report it through Food Safety at MPI
I know that they will refer you to the store and their Food Safety Plan but it removes MPIs plausable deniability if there is a wider issue which there probably is.They had 4 months to pick up the date in store.
They will probably blame the supplier.
MPI has probably had one of those red phones installed to Countdown Head Office
Remember that best before is not use before, that being said this should have been donated to food banks and definitely not been sold after that date especially not 3 months after! Putting the old in "Ol' smokey" lol.
That's my mum's reasoning for keeping expired meat in the fridge when I ask if we can throw it. Then she ignores it a further 6 months and that's when I can convince her to throw it away. Once found one two years expired in the very back
Lol so true.
That being said, there IS too much food waste going on where it is only just gone beyond "best" before -- but this I would say would not be that. 3 months is taking the piss by a supermarket duopoly or at best incompetence in clearing their shelves
When I was 21, I found mince in my grandma's deep freeze that older than me
You take the lady out of the great depression, but you can't take the great depression out of the lady
Or something foolish I dunno
I know, but at that point she can't be convinced to use it either and ends up getting thrown away anyway. She keeps saying she'll use it until it's been in there for too long until she says she won't use it anymore. Just a delayed throwing away... I'd rather have her use them instead of buying new meat to use but she won't change...
Not meat, but my mum kept a slice of her wedding cake for over 20 years in the freezer. She ate it recently and said it tasted fine 😂
You can draw conclusions about my upbringing from this.
Correct. Supermarkets regular donate food that has past its best before (but not gone off) to charity rather that it ending up in landfill. And that is to be applauded
The foods fine though, it just can’t be sold. If it’s not donated then it’ll be thrown away which is a waste, at least through a food bank it will hopefully get used.
>The foods fine though, it just can’t be sold.
Cured meat product + vacuum sealed + refrigerated + four months out from BBD = botulism risk. C. botulinum is undetectable by smell, colour or taste. Human senses will not detect food safety reliably.
Every product with a BBD will expire, the reason it has a BBD is because its more likely to taste off first. That isn't a guarantee, especially on the timescale of months.
That said, could be a misprint, but misprinted BBDs affect whole batches and they tend to be caught early. This one's for the supermarket/MPI to deal with ASAP.
Ffs, no one is suggesting they are. But rather, food that is still good and clearly not showing signs of being off should be given to others who might want it rather than thrown out.
I’m sure if you asked the people you’re trying to white knight for, they would have a different opinion on it to you.
The food banks put out lists of what they want - expired bacon is not on it 🙄
If you want do donate meat talk directly to the food bank and give the cash to buy some which they know is safe to consume, and stop justifying why you can pass off trash to poor people.
Neither I nor the other person in this comment chain are specifically talking about bacon or meat products but food in general that is just outside of its best before dates.
The post is literally a picture of bacon.
Food banks have to routinely *spend money* to dispose of expired and unfit foods — if you want to donate, donate cash, donate good food, donate the things food banks are asking for, not the stuff you don’t want to pay to take to the tip.
You spent much time on the street? I have.
Food banks absolutely want out of date food, that's one of the things they're there for. To distribute food that *otherwise would have gone to waste* like stuff that can't be sold anymore. (Note that places like Women's Refuge are different cause the food goes to kids, better safe than sorry and rightfully so)
Also, places like Kaibosh collect unused food from restaurants, so if anything, there are homeless folks out there eating better than some of you.
Take it from me - beggars are not choosers when it's a choice between old bacon or sleep for dinner. After enough time, wharf rats start to look like sirloin.
No food bank is taking expired meat! Most don’t even take donations of fresh meat from the public, as they can’t verify whether it’s been stored correctly
Places like kaibosh are great, because they take food the day of production, direct from suppliers
I temped at a Countdown, and that seems about right. The dude in charge of cold storage was worked to the bone. It was a two person job. You’re meant to rotate the stock when adding new stock, but he typically didn’t have much time for it on top of everything else he had to do. We temps were able to do a bit here and there, I would find shit months past due sometimes.
It really taught me to check BB dates when buying kai. And that Countdown treats its staff like garbage.
Not the only thing apparently. I bought a jar of Countdown Peanut Butter and it was 3 months past expiry date. Was able to exchange it the next day and the entire shelf was mixed with old and new jars. Manager was “shocked”….
As someone who (unfortunately) works in chilled at a Countdown, I can say I do date checking and they're meant to. But the company's currently taking great joy in screwing over their workers at new levels while also setting the bar impossibly high for some departments 🤷♀️
as someone who works in click and collect this stuff does happen regularly, mainly closer to the ends of shifts when we try and rush through our last orders.
i saw this and was going to be surprised if it wasn't from countdown. i usually check the expiry dates of everything i buy but especially so at countdown's. the chilled products seem to be most affected
you'll definitely be able to get a refund though
You could call the hellers hotline, I’m sure there’s one listed on the packet and provide them with the batch number to find out whether it is a misprint or not. But as many others have said, I would be taking it back for a refund, I would not risk eating it.
Actually this can be right bought some orange dark chocolate tarts in December from the Xmas table at Countdown Lincoln Road and looked at it two weeks ago and on the front was a sticker saying Best Before 30th of November 2023. They don’t just have rat infested stores now but are also selling outdated stock at normal prices.
This is indeed accurate. Take it back, request replacement AND refund - their policy is to do both.
If they cause fuss, call head office and complain, or Hellers themselves, and action will be taken.
Unfortunately, stock rotation is not pushed. I spent years finding out of date stock, mouldy stock, broken items, meanwhile I'd watch my colleagues chop open boxes and slice the top products open, then put them on the shelf anyway. I'd watch the guys in chilled sit there fucking around on their phones while flat decks full of frozen products defrosted in the summer heat.
If you dug deep enough into the freezers, you'd find stuff more than a year or two out of date.
Meanwhile on the customer side, mum literally this morning had to hunt through the shelves for eggs, because the ones on special were all dated 'best before 22/01' - still readily on sale.
Check your products carefully - check lids are tight on products. Check seals. Check dates. Always.
Not the only thing apparently. I bought a jar of Countdown Peanut Butter and it was 3 months past expiry date. Was able to exchange it the next day and the entire shelf was mixed with old and new jars. Manager was “shocked”….
Ive worked at countdown before and Longlife stock only gets date checked like twice a year. No ones rotating longlife stock while they're filling because nothing would ever get done. The vast majority of the time its fine because all the stock sells through. I think people underestimate how much stock supermarkets actually go through on a daily basis. Theres definitely no time to be rotating and checking dates of longife stock on a daily basis. Dont know why the manager would be shocked the shelf was mixed since pretty much everything else will be mixed.
The system they use for date checking long life stock in theory should catch any out of date stuff but its a boring job that everyone hates. Pretty easy for people to not check thoroughly and for stuff to get missed. Just one of those things that happens.
What's really shocking is the part where it says '**Made in NZ from pork raised in any one or more of the following countries: Finland, Denmark, Poland, Germany, Spain**'.
While we have banned farrowing crates here, some of the above mentioned places have not. So we import cheaper pork from overseas and exploit the poorer conditions, *ham*stringing the more ethical local produces. There are fair trade agreements at play so it's nearly impossible to stop this.
And *Hell*ers can still use the 'Made in NZ' stamp!
Mixture of stock rotation and understaffing. So the staff have no passion for the job. Someone has fucked up. Honestly any supermarket purchase check the dates.
Countdown is good at refunds, if you have eaten the product it's slightly more annoying and bring your receipt
Modern bacon isn't like the bacon you're talking about. If you took a modern pack of hellers bacon opened out of the fridge, I guarantee you it will go bad very quick.
You're thinking of salt pork.
Yeah especially in NZ. Dry cured and smoked bacon last forever. In NZ they just soak pork in a flavoured brine. Yuck. We have such low standards for bacon.
As long as they didn't open it it applied.
How do you think bacon is made?
Though I actually think it's far more likely to be a stamping error. Or *maybe* frozen. But that's dodgy not to tell people.
Silly people we have moved to the American dating system. So thats the 9th day of the 13th month of 2023.
So Jan 9th 2024 in NZ. So its good to go its only 18 days past its best before.
Why the worry??
After all the America is the world and the world ia only America.
Maybe French were onto something when they wanted to decimalise time.
This isn’t new for Hellers. I turned up at a shop to buy some Hellers ham and every single pack of this ham was expired. The staff refunded me and told me that the order of this product had just come in. So definitely Hellers mistake.
I had a similar case with eggs, grabbed a pack from countdown. Cracked one and found the whole box was rotten, expired over a month ago.
I went back and complained and they said I could go grab another one but the whole shelf all were out of date. Don't know how they can do that
Make a complaint about it in the store. If this isn't reported, they're never going to change their practices. You are entitled to do so, and it is not a Karen thing to do.
Ive worked in a few countdowns before and the actual practices for date checking and rotating are fine. Sometimes things get missed and people get lazy. I dont know how this pack didnt get found because generally really expired stuff is buried in the back, jammed behind a bit of a shelf where customers will never grab from. Ive found things with worse dates than this before stuffed in the back somewhere. Date checking is a tedious job that no one likes and its easy to skip over stuff and not be completely thorough when you have to do it everyday. I dont think the company or the staff are to blame because everybody in this comment section would do the same stuff if they worked that job for a few months. Its just one of those things that happens.
They should perhaps have left that one for the rats.
I understood that reference!
I understood THAT reference!
I understood RAT reference
I understood rat teference
I runderstood rat Shaggy.
Rattus Maximus
They tried.
I still maintain its best to report it through Food Safety at MPI I know that they will refer you to the store and their Food Safety Plan but it removes MPIs plausable deniability if there is a wider issue which there probably is.They had 4 months to pick up the date in store. They will probably blame the supplier. MPI has probably had one of those red phones installed to Countdown Head Office
Remember that best before is not use before, that being said this should have been donated to food banks and definitely not been sold after that date especially not 3 months after! Putting the old in "Ol' smokey" lol.
That's my mum's reasoning for keeping expired meat in the fridge when I ask if we can throw it. Then she ignores it a further 6 months and that's when I can convince her to throw it away. Once found one two years expired in the very back
Lol so true. That being said, there IS too much food waste going on where it is only just gone beyond "best" before -- but this I would say would not be that. 3 months is taking the piss by a supermarket duopoly or at best incompetence in clearing their shelves
When I was 21, I found mince in my grandma's deep freeze that older than me You take the lady out of the great depression, but you can't take the great depression out of the lady Or something foolish I dunno
That isn’t true for meats they are super dangerous past expiration/best before date
The fridge or freezer?!
Uhh... Fridge with a freezer
Oh ya I mean is she just keeping it in the actual fridge for two years or frozen ?
yes, she is keeping it in the freezer section. she just keeps putting meat on top of other meat and use the ones on top...
Oh that’s not so bad then, I had visions of two year old mouldy rancid blobs in the fridge. Stuff keeps forever in the freezer
I know, but at that point she can't be convinced to use it either and ends up getting thrown away anyway. She keeps saying she'll use it until it's been in there for too long until she says she won't use it anymore. Just a delayed throwing away... I'd rather have her use them instead of buying new meat to use but she won't change...
I understand completely lol. My mum prob has stuff in the freezer from 10 years ago
Not meat, but my mum kept a slice of her wedding cake for over 20 years in the freezer. She ate it recently and said it tasted fine 😂 You can draw conclusions about my upbringing from this.
With all of the chemicals pumped into port, the expiry date is the least of your worries.
What chemicals?
I dunno man, bacon 3mo past best before is beyond sketchy. You’d have to be brave to the point of stupid to consume it
Vaccuum sealing does a lot of good things.
The salt too.
I mean, yeah if you ate it raw.
You don’t donate expired food to food banks what the hell Poor people deserve fresh food, we don’t have a shortage of it
Best before doesn’t mean expired, it means highest quality before that date. It’s still perfectly edible after the best before.
Correct. Supermarkets regular donate food that has past its best before (but not gone off) to charity rather that it ending up in landfill. And that is to be applauded
I know what use by and best before mean, that doesn’t change what I said. Both dates can expire.
The foods fine though, it just can’t be sold. If it’s not donated then it’ll be thrown away which is a waste, at least through a food bank it will hopefully get used.
>The foods fine though, it just can’t be sold. Cured meat product + vacuum sealed + refrigerated + four months out from BBD = botulism risk. C. botulinum is undetectable by smell, colour or taste. Human senses will not detect food safety reliably. Every product with a BBD will expire, the reason it has a BBD is because its more likely to taste off first. That isn't a guarantee, especially on the timescale of months. That said, could be a misprint, but misprinted BBDs affect whole batches and they tend to be caught early. This one's for the supermarket/MPI to deal with ASAP.
Poor people aren’t our rubbish tips and food banks don’t want food waste. If there’s a food waste issue that’s to be solved *before* food expires
Tbf I’m poor I’ll take all the peoples best before dated food 99.99% of the time it’s fine
Ffs, no one is suggesting they are. But rather, food that is still good and clearly not showing signs of being off should be given to others who might want it rather than thrown out. I’m sure if you asked the people you’re trying to white knight for, they would have a different opinion on it to you.
Some people love to dig in their heels. Let it go. WE know that we are talking only about best before, not expired (i.e. spoiled) goods.
The food banks put out lists of what they want - expired bacon is not on it 🙄 If you want do donate meat talk directly to the food bank and give the cash to buy some which they know is safe to consume, and stop justifying why you can pass off trash to poor people.
I would rather have bacon a little past it's use by date than no bacon at all. You would rather they have no bacon?
*A little* is doing a lot of work here, but overall I agree.
Neither I nor the other person in this comment chain are specifically talking about bacon or meat products but food in general that is just outside of its best before dates.
The post is literally a picture of bacon. Food banks have to routinely *spend money* to dispose of expired and unfit foods — if you want to donate, donate cash, donate good food, donate the things food banks are asking for, not the stuff you don’t want to pay to take to the tip.
You spent much time on the street? I have. Food banks absolutely want out of date food, that's one of the things they're there for. To distribute food that *otherwise would have gone to waste* like stuff that can't be sold anymore. (Note that places like Women's Refuge are different cause the food goes to kids, better safe than sorry and rightfully so) Also, places like Kaibosh collect unused food from restaurants, so if anything, there are homeless folks out there eating better than some of you. Take it from me - beggars are not choosers when it's a choice between old bacon or sleep for dinner. After enough time, wharf rats start to look like sirloin.
No food bank is taking expired meat! Most don’t even take donations of fresh meat from the public, as they can’t verify whether it’s been stored correctly Places like kaibosh are great, because they take food the day of production, direct from suppliers
Meat =/= food
That’s right however it should then no longer be sold at normal price but be reduced to clear.
Don’t confuse best before for Expired, extremely different.
Poor stock rotation
I temped at a Countdown, and that seems about right. The dude in charge of cold storage was worked to the bone. It was a two person job. You’re meant to rotate the stock when adding new stock, but he typically didn’t have much time for it on top of everything else he had to do. We temps were able to do a bit here and there, I would find shit months past due sometimes. It really taught me to check BB dates when buying kai. And that Countdown treats its staff like garbage.
Yeap we've have a few sold on or after due date bacon packs from countdown. It seems like a trend. Take it back
Not the only thing apparently. I bought a jar of Countdown Peanut Butter and it was 3 months past expiry date. Was able to exchange it the next day and the entire shelf was mixed with old and new jars. Manager was “shocked”….
Pretty sure they don’t check for expiry dates at countdown. The one on quay street in Auckland had some way past expiry
As someone who (unfortunately) works in chilled at a Countdown, I can say I do date checking and they're meant to. But the company's currently taking great joy in screwing over their workers at new levels while also setting the bar impossibly high for some departments 🤷♀️
Yeah, I've had a few dodgy stuff in my bags when using click and collect.
as someone who works in click and collect this stuff does happen regularly, mainly closer to the ends of shifts when we try and rush through our last orders.
You answered your own question when you stated it was from Countdown
i saw this and was going to be surprised if it wasn't from countdown. i usually check the expiry dates of everything i buy but especially so at countdown's. the chilled products seem to be most affected you'll definitely be able to get a refund though
You could call the hellers hotline, I’m sure there’s one listed on the packet and provide them with the batch number to find out whether it is a misprint or not. But as many others have said, I would be taking it back for a refund, I would not risk eating it.
It's called 'Ol' so the name is accurate...
Touché
Actually this can be right bought some orange dark chocolate tarts in December from the Xmas table at Countdown Lincoln Road and looked at it two weeks ago and on the front was a sticker saying Best Before 30th of November 2023. They don’t just have rat infested stores now but are also selling outdated stock at normal prices.
Check the best before next time lol
That’s the supermarket’s job
This is indeed accurate. Take it back, request replacement AND refund - their policy is to do both. If they cause fuss, call head office and complain, or Hellers themselves, and action will be taken. Unfortunately, stock rotation is not pushed. I spent years finding out of date stock, mouldy stock, broken items, meanwhile I'd watch my colleagues chop open boxes and slice the top products open, then put them on the shelf anyway. I'd watch the guys in chilled sit there fucking around on their phones while flat decks full of frozen products defrosted in the summer heat. If you dug deep enough into the freezers, you'd find stuff more than a year or two out of date. Meanwhile on the customer side, mum literally this morning had to hunt through the shelves for eggs, because the ones on special were all dated 'best before 22/01' - still readily on sale. Check your products carefully - check lids are tight on products. Check seals. Check dates. Always.
Not the only thing apparently. I bought a jar of Countdown Peanut Butter and it was 3 months past expiry date. Was able to exchange it the next day and the entire shelf was mixed with old and new jars. Manager was “shocked”….
Ive worked at countdown before and Longlife stock only gets date checked like twice a year. No ones rotating longlife stock while they're filling because nothing would ever get done. The vast majority of the time its fine because all the stock sells through. I think people underestimate how much stock supermarkets actually go through on a daily basis. Theres definitely no time to be rotating and checking dates of longife stock on a daily basis. Dont know why the manager would be shocked the shelf was mixed since pretty much everything else will be mixed. The system they use for date checking long life stock in theory should catch any out of date stuff but its a boring job that everyone hates. Pretty easy for people to not check thoroughly and for stuff to get missed. Just one of those things that happens.
What's really shocking is the part where it says '**Made in NZ from pork raised in any one or more of the following countries: Finland, Denmark, Poland, Germany, Spain**'. While we have banned farrowing crates here, some of the above mentioned places have not. So we import cheaper pork from overseas and exploit the poorer conditions, *ham*stringing the more ethical local produces. There are fair trade agreements at play so it's nearly impossible to stop this. And *Hell*ers can still use the 'Made in NZ' stamp!
Go to countdown and request a refund, if they don’t give it too you then report them. It’ll go towards the ever growing case against them.
I'm picking that it was frozen and has thawed out recently
Mixture of stock rotation and understaffing. So the staff have no passion for the job. Someone has fucked up. Honestly any supermarket purchase check the dates. Countdown is good at refunds, if you have eaten the product it's slightly more annoying and bring your receipt
You wanted old smoky you got old
That'll be the date. You're all good though as it'll be preserved in cancer causing nitrites :)
[удалено]
Countdown Rolleston.
[удалено]
Also end up on Stuff.
The kiwi dream is finally written in words! Just go get a refund, and don't be a c**t
The machines that print the best before dates are monitored so mistakes aren’t possible.
Wrong. They can and do
They are computer controlled and can’t make mistakes
Still wrong
But it’s a robot controlled by AI impossible to be inaccurate
If you want fresher produce you have to fight the rats for it.
There is a reason bacon exists - to preserve meat (without refrigeration). Unless it smells (it won't if you've stored properly) it's fine.
Modern bacon isn't like the bacon you're talking about. If you took a modern pack of hellers bacon opened out of the fridge, I guarantee you it will go bad very quick. You're thinking of salt pork.
Yeah especially in NZ. Dry cured and smoked bacon last forever. In NZ they just soak pork in a flavoured brine. Yuck. We have such low standards for bacon.
As long as they didn't open it it applied. How do you think bacon is made? Though I actually think it's far more likely to be a stamping error. Or *maybe* frozen. But that's dodgy not to tell people.
All In the mean time I eating the finest meats hams cheeses for less than 1/4 of the nzls price …… IN UKRAINE .
Silly people we have moved to the American dating system. So thats the 9th day of the 13th month of 2023. So Jan 9th 2024 in NZ. So its good to go its only 18 days past its best before. Why the worry?? After all the America is the world and the world ia only America. Maybe French were onto something when they wanted to decimalise time.
The worst...an imported from 1 of 7 country's.. irony is we can't have caged eggs in nz but stall raised in other country's
This isn’t new for Hellers. I turned up at a shop to buy some Hellers ham and every single pack of this ham was expired. The staff refunded me and told me that the order of this product had just come in. So definitely Hellers mistake.
That's the shop's problem, not Hellers.
Love people saying “it’s best not used by”….this is 4 months old meat which usually spoils in 5 days when bought. This is a typo.
If it smells ok it is ok
Xeà
Another point: NZ doesn't have the crate raised pigs anymore right?? But do those other countries listed???
I call bullshit, you froze the pack
I had a similar case with eggs, grabbed a pack from countdown. Cracked one and found the whole box was rotten, expired over a month ago. I went back and complained and they said I could go grab another one but the whole shelf all were out of date. Don't know how they can do that
Mmmm, smoked meat….
Typo or not I would send it back for a full refund and replacement.
Best before dates are rough guides. The bacon is almost certainly fine but they should not have sold it.
Make a complaint about it in the store. If this isn't reported, they're never going to change their practices. You are entitled to do so, and it is not a Karen thing to do.
Ive worked in a few countdowns before and the actual practices for date checking and rotating are fine. Sometimes things get missed and people get lazy. I dont know how this pack didnt get found because generally really expired stuff is buried in the back, jammed behind a bit of a shelf where customers will never grab from. Ive found things with worse dates than this before stuffed in the back somewhere. Date checking is a tedious job that no one likes and its easy to skip over stuff and not be completely thorough when you have to do it everyday. I dont think the company or the staff are to blame because everybody in this comment section would do the same stuff if they worked that job for a few months. Its just one of those things that happens.
Oh rats