Departmental stores continue to sell expired products beyond their shelf-life despite raids by the Food Safety department a few weeks ago. “Shops still sell expired products in spite of checks,” said C. Rajan, Secretary General, Consumer Association of India (CAI).

Recently, consumable goods were seized when CAI, at the behest of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, conducted a consumer awareness programme for the first time in five districts across Tamil Nadu. A consumer had complained to a member of CAI, Kalyani Rajaram, about a retail chain in Royapuram. When Kalyani went to investigate, she made some “shocking” discoveries.

“This retail chain was found selling “healthy” biscuit packets and juice concentrate that were manufactured more than ten years ago at a 50 per cent discount,” said Rajan. A week later, they were selling spice powder that had expired months ago.

“We have sent a letter to the owner of the chain demanding an explanation and they have responded saying they will look into the issue. It’s outrageous,” Rajan added.

Shoppers elaborated instances when they had stumbled upon old deodorants, bad dairy products and powdered chips among other items. While some said that they always checked the expiry dates, others admitted that they overlooked them.

“I check the expiry dates of only some products, not all,” said Sruthi, an analyst with Mckinsey Knowledge Centre. “I hardly check the dates for edible items because I trust the shop to keep fresh stock.”

“I am always in a hurry so I don’t check the date,” said another shopper at Spencers Daily.

Mohan, an owner of a departmental store admitted that owners could be callous in replacing expired products.

“We are very careful with edible items but we are not very careful with cosmetic products. We’ve received complaints from customers about deodorants leaving white patches on clothes. In such cases, we allow the customers to exchange the product,” he said.

It is not only small stores that commit these mistakes. Larger stores have also been blamed by customers for being irresponsible.

There were also many shoppers at smaller stores who said that they did not know how to check expiry dates. This ignorance, said Rajan, was not very surprising.

“A responsible consumer is not one who picks up an expired product, puts it back on the shelf and buys another one. He should complain to the manager and demand that the product be removed,” Rajan added.

(Radhika studied at Stella Maris before moving on to ACJ, Chennai.)

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