If you wouldn’t feed an expired snack to your dog, don’t try to give it to your Amazon driver. We thought that was common sense, but apparently not.
In a trending video with more than 40,000 views, an Amazon delivery driver’s gratitude quickly turned to disgust as he took a closer look at the snack a customer gave him.
“DESPICABLE!!” Derek Musgrave (@musgravederek) says.
In the TikTok, Musgrave explains that he was making his rounds and saw a basket with a note thanking delivery people for their hard work and offering a free snack.
Amazon has gained a nasty reputation for providing back-breaking working conditions within its warehouses and outside on the delivery routes. Delivery workers have reported that their schedules are so tight that they sometimes don’t have time to take regular breaks for food and water.
An expired snack
So, when an Amazon delivery person sees a delivery driver appreciation basket with snacks and bevs, they’ll often be excited about the gesture and the free on-the-go snack.
Musgrave grabbed one but was disgusted by what he saw. The snack expired in 2017. That’s a whole seven years ago.
“There’s a special place in hell for the people that leave out expired snacks for the Amazon drivers,” Musgrave says.
“You wouldn’t feed it to your kid or your dog, but you want me to eat it? Go to hell,” Musgrave says.
@musgravederek DESPICABLE!! #amazondriver #foryou #amazon #amazonlife #fyp ♬ original sound – musgravederek
Is expired food safe to eat?
Every day, the average American chucks about a pound of food, according to a Department of Agriculture study. But that doesn’t mean your Amazon delivery person should be on the receiving end of the food you wouldn’t even eat yourself.
Some of this food waste is due to ambiguous “best by” and “use by” dates, which experts say need to be standardized since right nor 90% of Americans are misinterpreting labels. (Though common sense dictates that an item from 2017 should, without a doubt, be thrown out.)
Some of the food in question could still be eaten or frozen for later. But aside from for baby formula, there are no federal regulations on these “best by” dates. Instead, they’re often a manufacturer’s guess as to how long the food item will taste the freshest.
“Supermarkets may also use the dates as a guide when stocking shelves. But the dates have little to do with how safe the food is,” Consumer Reports stated.
A guide
Here’s a quick guide, according to Consumer Reports information:
- Best If Used By/Before: This is when the item will taste its best, but it doesn’t indicate how safe an item is to eat. Like how after a certain date, chips may still be safe to eat but may lose their crunch.
- Sell By: Manufacturers add this to communicate to retailers when to remove a product from shelves so that customers have access to food at it’s bet quality. This tends to be common with items like milk that require refrigeration.
- Use By: This is the last day the manufacturer guarantees an item will be at peak quality.
Many times, due to the reasons stated above, it’s fine to eat food that is technically expired. But in other cases—especially with perishable items like eggs, meat, fruits, and vegetables—this could cause food poisoning.
Viewers weigh in
People in the comments section had a lot to say.
“Dude everyone I see who works at Amazon hates there life,” a commenter wrote.
“They do it to us letter carriers too lol. I know it’s the thought that counts..but, still haha,” a person said.
“In all honesty it could have been a mistake. I recently bought some food from the grocery and when I opened it it didn’t look right. The exp was 2019,” another chimed in.
The Daily Dot reached out to Musgrave for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Amazon via email.
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