Whilst at our loacal Coles today, I noticed a special for Padron chillies for just $1 a pack, and as I had never seen them before, I picked up a pack so as to take a closer look.
Unfortunately, the flash from the phone has masked the use by date sticker in the first photo but it stated “19 May”.
Not illegal to sell after “Best Before”, but I would expect some notification, as well as price reduction.
Our little supermarket puts a texta through the barcode and a red edged Mark-Down sticker with sale price and/or a hand written texta “Out of Code” or “Going out of date” on a scrap of paper. The bread, within one day of Use-By, has a big texta X and goes out for $2 regardless of the brand. In a rush I picked up an X loaf and discovered (at home) it was 2 days past… grew mold the next day.
Point is - if it’s on special because it is near Use-By/Best-Before - I want to know that’s the reason for the mark-down. I also expect the perishable product would be removed once it passed its date. I don’t mind some less perishable product Marked Down because the Best-Before has passed - eg tinned soup doesn’t become toxic the next day.
Out of date products happen. It’s likely they simply were yet to be removed. In a supermarket with tens of thousands of products it’s near impossible to avoid this happening sometimes. Innocent mistake rather than shonky behaviour
Last year we found well out of date product - the entire stock of that product - 10s of units. We advised a stocker. Next week it was all still there. Advised the customer service desk. Next week it was still there.Then ‘asked’ about it on their facebook page (eg publicly) Next week it was gone and replaced with current dated product.
edit: had it backwards - now corrected, although it was only 1% difference either way.
In the ‘best grocer’ I noted Woolies beat Coles for fresh produce, but locally the reverse is usually true. Seems there can also be national variation based on where they have more shops, eg in FNQ it can be quite a different experience than in suburban Melbourne re distribution systems.
Potentially your local woolworths has a manager more interested in reducing loss than following policy. That would explain the discrepancy
Presuming you referenced
Why did you think that had to be Coles? It was Woolies. Although the Coles will often not mark down near ‘end of use by’ meats until 1-2 days prior depending on old stock levels, when a ‘fresh’ pack might have even 2-3 weeks of ‘life’, but that is a different topic.
Yes. It is also strange that the end of sale date in the bottom right hand corner states “20/05” and not “21/05” which is when all the other weekly specials finish.
Oh my apologies I misread your comment. I’ll correct mine now. Having said that is there even much difference in them these days? 
