Price Markups on Old Pie is NOT in the Holiday Spirit

Sad Pie.Everyone who's lived in New York long enough knows that recent grocery purchases spoiling early (sometimes as early as on the way home from the store, apparently) is par for the course. But that's because of the inexplicable fact that food in New York grocery stores have more imminent expiry dates than on perishables in suburban stores, right? Maybe. As it turns out, tampering with dates on the part of grocery store owners is alive and well in Park Slope.

So before you admonish yourself for not eating that Greek yogurt you're about to throw out fast enough, consider this: The Fresh Emporium Supermarket was recently caught altering expiration dates on pumpkin pies and displaying them on a shelf even though the package recommended refrigeration. Not only that, the pies were bought from Costco and marked up an additional $2.00. This isn't Emporium's first such violation. In the last few years they've been sited for selling rotten food and adding chunks of fat to packages of chicken to increase their weight. Yuck on several counts.

I've never worked in grocery though. For all I know changing dates is the most normal thing ever. Or maybe this is an anomaly -- an egregious one at that -- and we need some sort of grading system for grocery stores, too. Does anyone want to weigh in?