CNBC: Amazon Is Shipping Expired Food

Counterfeits aren’t the only problem when shopping on Amazon, reports CNBC. The grocery section is “littered” with expired foods. From baby formula and coffee creamer to beef jerky and granola bars, items are arriving spoiled and well past their sell-by date, Amazon customers say. Interviews with brands, consumers, third-party sellers and consultants all point to loopholes in Amazon’s technology and logistics system that allow for expired items to proliferate with little to no accountability. Consumer safety advocates worry that as the marketplace grows, the problem will only get worse… CNBC scanned the site’s Grocery & Gourmet category, finding customer complaints about expired hot sauce, beef jerky, granola bars, baby formula and baby food, as well as six-month-old Goldfish crackers and a 360-pack of coffee creamer that arrived with a “rancid smell.” A data analytics firm that specializes in the Amazon Marketplace recently analyzed the site’s 100 best-selling food products for CNBC and found that at least 40% of sellers had more than five customer complaints about expired goods…. Amazon’s spokesperson said the company uses a combination of humans and artificial intelligence to monitor the 22 million-plus pieces of customer feedback received weekly for product quality and safety concerns… Sarah Sorscher of the Center for Science in the Public Interest says Amazon’s technology is clearly coming up short. “Expiration dates are a red flag for what else is harder to see,” she said. “If you can’t do something as basic as check an expiration date, then what else are you missing…? They’ve chosen to set up a business model where they don’t take responsibility for the food that they sell,” said Sorscher. “Traditional grocery stores have a lot of products, but they don’t put it on the shelf if it’s not safe.”