{"id":625861,"date":"2026-01-21T06:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=625861"},"modified":"2026-01-22T13:44:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T11:44:01","slug":"woolworths-food-online-shopping-expiry-date-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/625861-woolworths-food-online-shopping-expiry-date-warning.html","title":{"rendered":"Woolworths Food online shopping expiry date warning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MyBroadband tested Woolworths Food’s online shopping service and found that it delivers products which are close to their sell-by dates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband has received complaints from Woolworths Food’s online clients that they often receive products which are set to expire soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sparked speculation that Woolworths proactively uses products which near their sell-by date for their online shopping service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths clients who do their own shopping in a brick-and-mortar store regularly select products which are further away from their sell-by date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that many products which near their sell-by date may have to be taken off the shelves, putting pressure on margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way to avoid losing money on products which are set to reach their sell-by date would be to use them in online shopping deliveries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, clients cannot choose products based on their sell-by date. They have to take what they get with their delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband tested whether Woolworths’ online deliveries contain products which are close to their sell-by date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ordered a basket of groceries, which were delivered on 15 January 2026. We checked the sell-by date for each product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two products, a punnet of Blackberries and a deboned chicken, had sell-by dates which raised concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The punnet of Blackberries has a sell-by date of 14 January 2026, a day before the products were delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deboned chicken also had a sell-by date of 14 January 2026 and a use-by date of 15 January 2026, the same day as the delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We visited Woolworths’ brick-and-mortar store to compare the sell-by and use-by dates for these two products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The punnet of Blackberries in the store had sell-by dates ranging between 17 January 2026 and 18 January 2026. This was three days more than the online delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deboned chicken in the physical Woolworths store had a sell-by date of 18 January 2026 and a use-by date of 19 January 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a clear discrepancy between online deliveries and in-store products. The sell-by dates for online delivery products were closer to the current date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths Feedback<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At Woolworths, when it comes to fulfilling online food orders, our policy is always to select the item with the longest available sell\u2011by date from stock currently displayed on the shop floor at the time of picking.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the only available sell\u2011by date is on the day of delivery, we consider this completely acceptable. The sell\u2011by date indicates how long an item is offered for sale in\u2011store; it is not an expiry date.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our exceptional quality standards apply to all Woolies food, and we\u2019re confident these standards are met across our online and in-store environments. If a customer is ever unhappy with the quality of Woolies food, we will gladly issue a refund.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one ordered food via Dash with a certain sell-by date, and saw the same item in-store with a different sell-by date, it\u2019s possible the Dash order was picked at a different store, or that the store was replenished between the order being picked and the shopper visiting the store.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, we would never deliberately allocate items with shorter remaining shelf life to our online customers. Online and in\u2011store customers are treated equally, and our commitment to quality applies consistently across all sales the Woolies channels.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MyBroadband tested Woolworths Food’s online shopping service and found that it delivers products which are close to their \u2018Sell By\u2019 dates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":538087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[8507,5378,102936],"class_list":["post-625861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-woolworths","tag-woolworths-food","tag-woolworths-online-shopping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625861"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626242,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625861\/revisions\/626242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}