The legal liability issues from donating or otherwise recycling past-date food are severe -- and were created by the liberal meddlers in the first place.
Trader Joe's is caught in the crossfire between the "EEVIL corporations sell tainted/spoiled food" and the "EEEVIL corporations throw away perfectly good food". As usual, the liberals change their ground to suit their whim of the moment.
Donating anything which is outdated (even by a day or two) can bring on serious liability issues even if the food is perfectly safe. Dry goods may be safely edible for decades after the expiration date, with some loss of flavor. Canned goods may be fine for years and even frozen meats may be good for months.
There is a true story about the British Museum in the 1930's feeding a cat some tinned meat from the Napoleonic Wars 120 years or so earlier. The cat ate it and suffered no ill effects. Though I can't imagine the color or taste would be particularly pleasant.
We run into this every fall when we are involved with the Scouting for Food campaign. Individuals donate food and Boy Scouts pick up the bags and take the collected donations to a local food cupboard. With every passing year we seem to get a higher percentage of food past its sell-by date. The food cupboard doesn't accept it, so it goes to waste unless one of the Scouts takes it home. It's really sad to see it wasted, but none of the organizations can accept the liability.
Perfect post, AnAmericanMother. Every word is right on.
Two more points:
This discarding of close-to-the-date food reassures the TJ shopper that you are getting fresh merchandise when you shop there. In my experience, supermarkets are not as careful in discarding past-the-date items.
I thought of another reason for patronizing TJ’s: none of their products bear bilingual (English/Spanish) labelling, which I am boycotting.