Amazon has such a massive presence online and they sell pretty much everything and anything. As such, it is not surprising that the company sometimes sources out some of its products to third-party sellers. This is a pretty common practice but unfortunately, it seems that some of them aren’t above board.According to a report from CNBC, it has been discovered that several of Amazon’s third-party sellers are selling food that is long-expired. For example, customers who purchase items like baby formula and coffee creamer and beef jerky are discovering that their items are arriving spoiled and well past their expiry dates.
CNBC even hired a data analytics firm who discovered that amongst Amazon’s 100 best-selling food products, at least 40% of the sellers had more than five customer complaints regarding expired products. An Amazon spokesperson has since reached out to CNBC and said that all third-party sellers are required to adhere to the law and Amazon’s own policies, such as providing an expiration date and will also need to guarantee that an item has a remaining shelf life of at least 90 days.
However, according to Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at advocacy group Consumer Federation of America, the problem is in the enforcement of these policies. “There’s no indication of how well that policy is enforced. Some sellers could be making a business decision to sell expired products and let Amazon catch some of it and toss it out and persist.”