425B printed adjacent to
the sell-by date on the retail carton and inside the USDA mark of inspection on the shipping case.
Officials there discovered 25kg of seafood and margarine past
the sell-by date, and another 24kg of meat, sauces, cheese and sugar that had no visible sell-by date.
Dalton Phillips, of Morrisons, said: "The yoghurts I eat are often way past
the sell-by date.
EGGS How long they really last: Three weeks past
the sell-by date in the fridge; one year in the freezer (out of shell).
They also found examples where
the sell-by date was obscured by the price label.
SHOP-BOUGHT SANDWICHES: Only risk one day past
the sell-by date.
She claimed
the sell-by date system to ensure the freshness and quality of food could easily be changed by staff, who would wipe out existing dates and write in later dates.
But they quickly established that
the sell-by date was not all that it seemed.
Most DJ-mix CDs are just Saturday night souvenirs, all the latest spun-sugar club hits slapped together and rushed into stores before
the sell-by date passes.
Scientists also found that the eggs did not show a marked decrease in quality five weeks after
the sell-by date.
magazine said processing plants may relabel
the sell-by date several times before meat reaches shelves and it is all legal.
When questioned, Mrs Nakra said the print of
the sell-by date on Lunchables was smaller than on other products and hard to read.
A spokesman for Tesco, where the crisps were bought, told us: "We remain completely baffled that it was possible to buy crisps from us so far past
the sell-by date.
At Healthy Living, in Leicester, there were two bars of Tropical Source dairy-free chocolate more than three months past
the sell-by date - and packets of flavoured soya chunks with sell-by dates of end of August '97.
The Polemidhia residence, used as a warehouse by a 51-year-old man, acted as a distribution centre where products had
the sell-by dates changed before they were returned to the market.
