Submitted by socialistpizzaparty t3_10yvg24 in springfieldMO

Every time I shop here, I accidentally bring home expired foods and have to turn around and go back. Not sure what the deal is, but it’s always THIS location at National and Republic. Just a warning folks to hopefully save you the hassle of a return trip… CHECK YOUR DATES.

FWIW, I know mustard is basically one big preservative so it’s less sensitive to dates, but I see this same issue with food all over the store.

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Reasonable_Garage318 t1_j7zstpb wrote

I agree with what you're saying. But also let's note that a best by date is not the same as expiration date.

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formiscontent t1_j7ztrbd wrote

But generally speaking, it's an indication that the store doesn't prioritize rotation/freshness/sell by dates. If this is common on the floor, what does it say about their produce and meat? (It doesn't have to say anything, they may prioritize freshness there, but it's a flag.)

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Smooth_Hexagon t1_j7zuban wrote

Most canned and sealed goods are fine to eat for quite a while after the best by date. The best buy date isn't an expiry date. However it is kinda weird for a store to shelf things past the best buy date.

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00112358132135 t1_j7zuli7 wrote

Noting that others here say “not expired”, Price Cutter has still been selling more and more food past its freshness date since the pandemic.

I legitimately could not purchase dairy items that were not past their expiration date at the National and St.Louis location. Their produce is often rotting nowadays. They used to have better produce than Walmart, now it’s the opposite.

I’m actively boycotting Price Cutter since they’ve only made it more expensive and less healthy to shop “on a budget”.

Seriously, what prices are being “cut” when a head of wilted lettuce is $5.50?

Ps: the workers usually look exhausted, I feel sorry for you guys. Hey-Vee seems like it takes care of their staff.

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lydia_videll t1_j7zvqnl wrote

I noticed that from the National/repub one as well. The employees always look so defeated and as much as I want to support them, it makes me wonder if this location is not getting the best treatment from higher ups.

Ever since Hy-vee opened up on sunset, I’ve been going out of my way to shop there and try to avoid price cutter when I can because I’ve had that same issue with past “Best By” and experience diary products.

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Elios000 t1_j7zvqzz wrote

that date makes even more insane really. like you said said mustard doesnt really go bad. so that means these have been sitting since 2021 or so as it normally has about 1 to 2 year shelf life

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Glam-Breakfast t1_j800q9z wrote

Just posting to say that I have found so many expired things at the National/St. Louis location when I still lived over there. Haven’t had problems at the one nearest to me now but their pricing is totally out of wack

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disturbed_beaver t1_j804nxj wrote

I can only speak to my ordering for a laboratory but I know I was ordering anything and everything from anywhere just trying to restock supplies. When the bottlenecks eased, I was shipped a ridiculous amount of supplies. I'm guessing something similar happened with stores.

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orchd84 t1_j8063y7 wrote

For those who don't mind food past its best by date, Discount Freight and Grocery has some really awesome deals in Ozark. I found the dry goods can be a bit touch and go but they also had a lot of freezer items that you can get great deals on.

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formiscontent t1_j8071sd wrote

This was a big complaint for Walmart workers last year. If you were in a Walmart parking lot and saw dozens of big storage containers, that's why. They were so jammed up in the backroom they couldn't get to the merchandise to stock it.

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user10085 t1_j808gjh wrote

I live near a price cutter. It’s the nearest grocery store. I’ll continue to shop there. I guess I’ll just check the dates if I’m that concerned about it, but it’s never been a big problem, so I’m not really worried about this.

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Mean_Addition_6136 t1_j80bxlq wrote

It’s mustard, it’s mustard seed in high acidity vinegar. As long as it’s sealed it will be good for about 2 years.

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IronSolace t1_j80c90e wrote

The National/STL St. location constantly has expired cheese in their containers. I think recently I saw the specialty cheese fridge was completely empty and they restocked it. Before that every bag of fresh mozzarella was expired there. That place is full of expired food from time to time.

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oliviashanks t1_j80cpe2 wrote

If you shop deals, be careful with that at Pricecutter too. I'm always getting charged more than the prices on their ad.

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tifferpok t1_j80f4da wrote

Price cutter is the worst about selling foods past the date. I made the mistake of doing TWO grocery pick up orders with them and both times, multiple items in my order were bad/moldy. I have never really been a fan of shopping there anyway, because they are more expensive and do seem to have expired dairy and bad produce on the shelves consistently.

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StealthyPenguins t1_j80h1kl wrote

A friend of mine pointed this out at the Hy-Vee on sunshine to me a few months back and now I can’t unsee it. I’ve gone back to going clear across town to the other Hy-Vee because I’ve been finding food that’s now nearly a year out of date on the shelves. I know it’s probably fine in most cases, but it’s frustrating coming from a brand new store. I picked up cheese there last month and the entire under side was moldy as hell, picked up another and same issue. I decided cheese wasn’t for me that day lol

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Television_Wise t1_j80ieay wrote

I would stop shopping there. Old food, sky-high prices, a small selection. Even if it's the closest grocery, the others ones all deliver.

It might seem cheaper to skip delivery and shop in person, but when the prices are so much higher and the food quality you get is lower, it really doesn't save you anything.

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AmcillaSB t1_j80j8xk wrote

Find me a grocery store that doesn't have some expired/bad cheese, and I'll pay you a million dollars. Price Cutter, Brown Derby, Mama Jeans, are all offenders, and the list goes on.

HyVee is probably the best place to go to get cheese that's not sketchy (at least I don't recall ever seeing dried-out cheese or stuff that has bad mold growing on it.)

That said, at the Brown Derby Wine Center, you can sometimes find 50%-off discounted cheese because it's close to expiration -- it's a roll-of-the-dice gamble sometimes, but it is usually worth the risk.

Source: Me, I love fancy cheese and eat a lot of it.

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tifferpok t1_j80jhwf wrote

I had this issue at the Hy-Vee on Battlefield. I was buying yogurt and an entire shelf of yogurt was bad. I pulled all the bad ones off to the side and flagged down an employee to tell them. I hardly shop at Hy-Vee anymore either though. I almost always use grocery pick up now and Target has the superior grocery pick up in my opinion.

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StealthyPenguins t1_j80kld0 wrote

I went into the Hy-Vee on sunshine to grab some steaks and just for curiosity sake checked to see if they removed an item I let them know was expired by about 10 months. Nope. But they stocked more that was now 13 months off lol They literally stocked new items that had been expired by at least a year at that point. I get that don’t check every single item, I’m sure, but ugh. It was disheartening after the sheer number of items I had been finding leading up to not going anymore. it’s not a cheap store to start with to get food that’s so out of date so frequently.

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phokas t1_j80nll0 wrote

Stop giving your money to Erick Taylor. He's a crook.

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IronSolace t1_j80osq4 wrote

Yeah it’s not a huge deal overall but it is frustrating at that location it is more common. I still go there because they are the only grocery store that sells full fat lost moisture mozzarella at the deli and everyone there is very nice to me.

As someone that’s is looking for a specific cheese, other than natural grocers off Glenstone do you know of any place that sells buffalo mozz?

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tifferpok t1_j80pmae wrote

I agree, Hy-Vee is one of the pricier stores in my opinion. So is pricecutter. So going in and spending MORE money to get expired products is just simply not worth it. About the only thing I shop there for anymore is their produce because I will give them that their produce selection is unmatched (Editing for spelling)

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BootuInc t1_j80puk2 wrote

I'm not a huge fan of pork but over the last month or two they have had an absolute ton of good frozen pork products for dirt cheap. I'll be doing a grocery run there tonight actually and definitely recommend it

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AmcillaSB t1_j80pwga wrote

Brown Derby has had it on occasion. You can sometimes make a request or a cheese suggestion, and sometimes they follow through if they can get it through their distributor. Mama Jeans also makes a point of having some some interesting/exotic world cheeses, there's probably no harm in asking them, as well. If you can find a state or regional business that makes it from them to order from, even better.

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quiros13 t1_j80w4sp wrote

The price cutter on national across my steak shake was selling children’s cold medicine that expired in 2019. I went in last month to buy some for my kids that were running a fever and had to dig all the way back to find one that wasn’t expired in 2019. Took all the expired ones to front desk and gave it to the lady.

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iced-macchiato t1_j81aqft wrote

I bought frozen pizza at the St Louis location that was expired once and didn’t notice until I put it in the oven. I check everything from there now. Unfortunately that is the closest grocery store to me or I wouldn’t shop there so often.

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nuts316 t1_j81azb6 wrote

It's all price cutters. Just saw multiple shopping carts of pulled out of dates at the chestnut and bypass location. National and republic road is one of their slowest volume stores. The owner keeps a number of these turtle stores open just so Walmart doesn't swoop in and take the land after shutting one down.

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MacAttack2015 t1_j81drut wrote

Expiration/best by date conversation aside, I live near this store but try to avoid going to it because every time I go, I get dark energy from the employees lol. There is one in particular that I see there every time I go who is constantly aggressively talking about stuff very loudly with his coworkers, sometimes insulting other coworkers or talking about drama in the store. I even recently heard one call another the r-word, and I wasn’t the only customer around when he said it lol.

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Sezeye t1_j81ihbk wrote

You know that’s not an expiration date, right?

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lady_guard t1_j81njye wrote

True, I used to work in grocery at Target in another state, and I was the only team member to my knowledge who actually donated/disposed of expired food or bothered to do FIFO. Our team leads thought running expired goods to the donation area or the compactor was a waste of time and would bitch about how long it took. (As long as the store looked good to the district TL's during walkthroughs, the store leads didn't give a crap about sell-by dates or food safety.) So everyone else in Consumables just left the expired product on the shelf until a guest would eventually call or come in the store to complain. It definitely indicates a problem in management priorities IMO.

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ArtisticTomatillo106 t1_j81sdi5 wrote

You pay low wages you get low efforts. Nobody wants to make sure the newest stuff is in the back so that oldest stuff get sold first. Unfortunately they're not going to give a f*** they're just going to raise the prices Tell you to go f*** yourself and let things rot

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BrownLightning96 t1_j81wt8j wrote

As a former Price Cutter employee, I agree. My department once had 4 people closing per night, and ended up down to 2. Our prices are also a joke. Our lunch meat prices have skyrocketed since I left. American cheese used to be like 5-6 dollars/lb. Can’t remember. Now it’s like 8 dollars/lb

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daleearn t1_j81xkae wrote

Doesn't say "expires on" Says "best by" 2 different things!

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PenguinColada t1_j8237wc wrote

Price Cutter on W. Kearney is just as bad, unfortunately. I stopped going altogether because of it.

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TheAmaryllis t1_j826vxf wrote

This is actually my favorite Price Cutter in town. Weird.

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Starportalskye t1_j8281ok wrote

I have had this problem at that location since last summer!

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Starportalskye t1_j82823a wrote

I’ve had this problem at that location since last summer but their produce is better than Walmart

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jakedmj t1_j82d8rh wrote

I would not be buying food at the freight store, personally. I've had way too many regretful purchases to trust it. Great opportunity to buy commercial cleaning concentrates though.

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jakedmj t1_j82dqg0 wrote

As someone who is intimately familiar with the warehouse it doesn't happen. Those dates are put on at the factory where most every other brand is packaged as well. It is just been stored for way too long, not that it makes a huge difference for this particular product.

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00112358132135 t1_j82pnq8 wrote

Same here. I used to go for the convenience. Now I just go to Hy-Vee for the things that Price Cutter can’t seem to do right. At hyvee I regularly get half and half that is 2 months before expiration date, I’m like that’s what I’m talking about

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hu1ksmash t1_j82rxti wrote

Is this news? Go talk to a store manager if you an issue. Probably would have been faster than posting this.

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sgf-guy t1_j82s5aq wrote

The W Republic store has manager markdowns for near expiry day meats. You never know what will come up, but if you are in the area and more ideally have a deep freeze, you can get some deals. Other stores tend to not do any markdowns for some reason.

I recently visited FoodForLess. Seemed like most products were close to slightly more than WM…some variety of things if you like to explore. Tons of meat at competitive prices. I did a dive into FFL and the only stores in the area for FFL seem to be SGF and Joplin locally. How Pricecutter is still the outlier for prices is beyond me…got to be a shit business model. I still see people with entire carts of stuff paying an average of 15-40% more though.

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darrellbear t1_j82zbs4 wrote

Hint: why else would PriceCutter be selling it?

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daleearn t1_j830t1j wrote

Definitely not expired and I bet if you did a blind taste test with one that is fresher you’d not be able to tell the difference. Manufacturers started putting these dates on products to move more product IMO. Granted if I have a choice I’m buying the fresher product but if that product is discounted which I know it wasn’t but if it was I’d buy it hands down without concern!

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phokas t1_j8330ve wrote

Another silver spoon in this country who has run his daddy's company into the ground and treated his employees like shit. Constantly reshuffles capital in opening and closing stores to fudge numbers. Was suppose to be union grocery business, later did I find out he's on it with your mandated measly .25 raise per year. Shop at Hy-Vee or mama jeans if you can afford them. At least they treat their people well.

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lochlainn t1_j834b32 wrote

Do not go to discount freight and grocery! If you all show up there you won't leave any good deals for me!

I mean... They're... bad, them and their (checks receipt) cheap food. It's stale, stay out of that briar patch, etc., etc.

I swear to god if you run them out of jalapeno cheddar brats I will turn this internet around.

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TurbulentPiccolo9656 t1_j83dlua wrote

You show on the item it says best by you but about expiration dates it's a best buy date not a expiration the stuff will be fine. Although if they're selling stuff past the best by date it should at least be reduced in price ....

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socialistpizzaparty OP t1_j83scno wrote

100% agree on that part. Everything has a “best by” date nowadays… my paper towels probably have them 😆If it passes that date in the store, I won’t buy it. But if it’s in my fridge and I’ve been using it, I just keep ok using it.

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lydia_videll t1_j89w250 wrote

So to tack onto this: my partner and I have stopped buying frozen food from the nat/repub price cutter because by the time we brought it home, we noticed lots of freezer burn. At some point, it had thawed and had been refrozen.

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