Is it legal for shops to sell out of date stock?

[PaulB]

Our erm... I'll call it a corner shop to avoid getting in to any trouble always sells out of date stock. For example. Today my girlfriend bought a bottle of Dr Pepper and it was dated 06/03/2011. That's 14 days out of date. This isn't the first time this has happened. They also have mars bars and things months out of date.

Is this legal?

[kuzkasate]

Yeah its illegal. I was at work experience the other week and had to get rid of all out of date crisps because it was illegal to sell them.

[wixard]

i dunno i dont complain
our corner shop sells like 4 chocolate bars for a euro and theres a sign beside it 'only the ones in this section please'
hahahaha you look at the date and they're either expiring in the next few days or been expired a few days

[-:Undertaker:-]

Silly though, to be fair your girlfriend should have checked the date before buying. (if she did, nevermind). But i'd avoid getting the shop in trouble for something you can so easily check yourself, and besides - our teacher used to sell us all out of date biscuits for buttons, perfectly fine.

[Circadia]

As long as they reduce the price and not considerably over date, then i think its fine to sell them.

[Martin]

I work in a supermarket, and we're not allowed to sell out of date food to the public (although some occasionally slip through), however they do sell quite a lot of it to staff (put it in the canteen at a very reduced price for us to buy)

[redtom]

I work in a supermarket, and we're not allowed to sell out of date food to the public (although some occasionally slip through), however they do sell quite a lot of it to staff (put it in the canteen at a very reduced price for us to buy)

The same happens where I work.

I'm pretty sure you can still sell the stock at a reduced price as long as its clear that the stock is out of date. Most of the bigger supermarkets don't tend to do this as they can afford to sell it off else where or scrap it, allot of the smaller newsagents tend to have them baskets full of out of date drinks for half the price.

[Misawa]

It is illegal for shops to sell products past their "use by" dates, but it's perfectly legal to sell stock past their "best before" dates, though most shops have their own policies about the latter.

[myke]

fizzy drinks hardly have a use by date, it's fizzed, compressed in a can and full of sugar.........

[Catzsy]

You need to call Trading Standards - they would be on them like a ton of bricks.