The Food Lion expired meat scandal in 1992
Posted by WilliamTK1974@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 69 comments
Does anyone remember the scandal after ABC News had a couple of reporters take jobs at a Food Lion in North Carolina? The reporters revealed several unhygienic practices in the meat department, such as bleaching chicken to get rid of bad smells and then re-packing it with an updated expiration date. The company's stock took a tumble and they had to do all kinds of damage control back in the time when that was different than it is now. I think they may have even said that no wrongdoing took place.
We were all high school juniors at that time, and one of my friends had a p/t job at a Food Lion near his house, and he confirmed that he had seen some sketchy practices in the meat department, but that anything pre-packaged, like the store brand of Club-style crackers and Chips Ahoy cookies were ok. Whenever we went on a hike or day on the lake and planned to either bring our own lunch or have some kind of cookout, he always brought the store brand chips and snacks, and no one got sick from that.
Just talking about it makes me want some of those store brand crackers...
Reader47b@reddit
I do because I had bought meat from Food Lion that year...
ArcanumAntares@reddit
they're looting the Food King!...
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
Mine's bigger. My cucumber, it's bigger.
Ohio_gal@reddit
The irony is that we’ve now all accepted chlorinated chicken, which is of course illegal in Europe.
The_Platypus_Says@reddit
I still won’t buy pre-seasoned or marinated meat because of it and I’ve never even lived anywhere there was a Food Lion.
Bromodrosis@reddit
It's the same reason why you don't eat hot dogs with ketchup.
gamespite@reddit
I saw the exposé when it aired but had never heard of Food Lion. A year later I started college, and the town I moved to had one, which immediately sparked a memory. I never bought meat or produce there, but I actually did shop there on the regular… they were the only store in town to carry the elusive raspberry Pop-Tarts.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
TIL Raspberry Pop-Tarts used to be a thing.
potchie626@reddit
They’re still available. We got them from Amazon Fresh a few months ago. I like them. It prefer blueberry.
gamespite@reddit
They were the best, and also the hardest to find!
SamWhittemore75@reddit
BLEACH YOUR MEAT?!?
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
If you don't bleach your meat, you can't have any pudding.
annette_va@reddit
Still refuse to buy meats from Food Lion, aka Shitty Kitty
CWCyning@reddit
We were living in N.C. just before the scandal hit. I remember complaining about the ground beef being grey in the center and smelling a bit off, and tasting nasty when cooked. The manager claimed it was because it had been frozen and thawed, and my mother believed it. A couple of years ago I got some meat from Publix that had the same pink/grey pattern, and I haven't bought meat from them since.
LightFlaky2329@reddit
I remember seeing a Food Lion for the first time in 2010 or 2011 and immediately thinking OMG exposed meat
Salt-Ad1282@reddit
Then this happened
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Lion,_Inc._v._Capital_Cities/ABC,_Inc.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
So Food Lion went after ABC because the reporters used fake identities to get the jobs that enabled them to see what was going on in the stores?
Salt-Ad1282@reddit
Yes. And they won a nominal award.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
Wow... It's guess if you look closely at the law, they had a case, but it almost seems like a PR disaster to turn it into a lawsuit.
TheJokersChild@reddit
I see Food Lion's been owned by Ahold (Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford) for about 10 years now. I briefly shopped at one and didn't experience anything shady, so hopefully the new ownership has changed things for them.
Lumpy-Artist-6996@reddit
West coast, so we never had a Food Lion. We're the like a Safeway or more a discount chain?
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
Probably more like a Safeway. I don't recall Food Lion branding themselves as a discount grocery store.
TheJokersChild@reddit
I think Food Lion is one rung lower than Safeway, which I consider mid/standard-tier...but it's still a level higher than Aldi.
Reddiculusness@reddit
LFPINCSCVA
Lowest food prices in NC , SC, VA , was in all their commercials for a while
started as LFPINC SC and VA were added as they expanded
napstimpy@reddit
Didn’t they temporarily try to rebrand at least some stores as Bloom, trying to compete with Whole Foods?
PahzTakesPhotos@reddit
We had just moved to Savannah, Georgia (Hunter Army Airfield) and that was the first time I lived near a Food Lion. We had just had our second child and I stayed away from Food Lion because of the scandal being all over the news.
We did mostly the base commissary and the Kroger that was close to our base.
wellbloom@reddit
Are you guys still in Georgia? I’m in Atlanta!
PahzTakesPhotos@reddit
Unfortunately no. After my husband became disabled, we moved to where my parents were because they were helping us. We're in Wisconsin.
bigmedallas@reddit
Was it someone on SNL's Weekend Update that covered the scandal with "Food Lion, more like Lion Food..."
Orangeboi_22@reddit
Came here to say this. Kevin Nealon reporting that Food Lion would now be changing their name to Lion Food.
TemperReformanda@reddit
I remember it vividly because I lived not far from that. Eventually went to work at Winn-Dixie as an apprentice meat cutter.
Most of Winn-Dixie was pretty good but there was one meat marker manager I ended up working under that was absolutely diabolical. He made damn good profit numbers but rarely worked more than 30 hours, bullied everyone that worked under him, and more than once would use fingernail polish remove to wipe the expiry date off of lunch meats. That was over 30 years ago, I suspect the guy has been deleted by someone at this point given what a jackass he was to nearly everyone. As soon as I left the company I intentionally never set foot in that store again. It shut down about 6 years after I left.
wellbloom@reddit
There was an iconic Winn-Dixie left standing when I moved to Atlanta 26yrs ago. I think it was even in the film, “Driving Miss Daisy.” Such a relic!
Inevitable_Professor@reddit
Nothing a good bottle of BBQ sauce won't fix.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
And putting something in the microwave will kill anything.
donottouchwillie1@reddit
I wonder if the Simpsons episode where they sold expired ham at the Kwik E Mart was a parody of this.
5usie@reddit
I’ve heard that it is common practice for stores with in house butchers to grind expired beef together with good beef, not that it’s right, but it happens alot
zerovian@reddit
I have called them "food lying" to this day.
CygnsX-1@reddit
As the only two grocery stores in my county are both Food Lion, I think about it often.
chinstrap@reddit
I ended up as a regular Food Lion customer, but this did put me off of them for some years.
vtqltr92@reddit
Same -- it took me years to shop at Food Lion again. With current food prices, I'm shopping there more often, but I still pause every time I'm at the meat section.
Ceorl_Lounge@reddit
I was in college that fall, guess what the only grocery store within a couple miles of campus was?
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
They probably had plenty of college student workers they could harass and push around, and force to do stupid stuff like pouring bleach on chicken and fish.
byndhlp@reddit
What's wrong with a little bleach on your fish?
Totally remember it, still wonder what could be happening behind the counter. Thankfully I don't live near Food Lion.
The Winn Dixie I shopped at in South Florida was likely similar. I can remember seeing green meat in the coolers if I was there late on Sundays. Guessing I ate at least some store aged beef and slippery chicken.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
It's funny how "aged" at a steakhouse means it's going to be good, where aged at a grocery store where it's turning green and black and has other brightly colored items sprouting on its surface is a food poisoning incident waiting to happen.
jax2love@reddit
I remember the Food Lion near my house smelling like rotten meat the first week it was open 🤢
DarklyDominatingDocs@reddit
In my travels, I've stepped inside of 3 Food Lions. I walked right TF back out of all 3 of them for exactly this ^^ reason.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
I'm kind of fortunate here that the one near me doesn't smell bad. It had a slightly dingy look, though. A few years ago, a Walmart Market opened about a half mile away, and the Food Lion upped its game. It's now the nicer store and still reasonable prices.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
That's just nasty... I've only been in one grocery store that had a rotten smell to it, and it wasn't open too long.
UrsaMajor7th@reddit
No idea- that happened in another country.
Mom_who_drinks@reddit
Yes! I thought I was the only one! I have never set foot in a Food Lion and I never will.
Unique-Sock3366@reddit
I remember!
We made jokes about “the food’s been lying around in feces” for weeks! 😉
litefytr@reddit
My dad was a butcher there at this time. The management at the stores were responsible for most of it. They also wanted him to work hours of of the clock. He got a nice check when they settled that one
Turbulent_Tale6497@reddit
Wasn't this the basis for Tiger King?
aran_maybe@reddit
Expired meat was the only thing I bought at food lion. It was so cheap.
Fluid_Change_9647@reddit
I remember this happening. Food Lion had just started showing up in north Texas and then they pretty much disappeared. I took my parallel parking test in the parking lot of a closed Food Lion
CajunAsianTexan@reddit
Yeap, was a senior in Plano and remember this.
Gajax@reddit
They had just expanded into Texas, lots of stores had been build and were just opening. THey all closed shortly thereafter.
ChilledRoland@reddit
Most of the closed stores around me became churches (alas, not Church's).
Virtual_Mechanic2936@reddit
Remember it well. And once that came out, they couldn't get out fast enough.
Mugwumps_has_spoken@reddit
As a North Carolina resident hell yes. It was a long time before I could even begin to buy meat from Food Lion again.
they even did tricks to make the meat still look Pink and healthy. All kinds of bad, bad, shit.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
Food Lion doesn't have a monopoly on the whole pink meat trick. About 20 years or so ago, I knew a guy who was a former Albertson's meat cutter, and he said when the ground beef in the cooler was starting to look a little aged, they would re-grind it with a beef heart, and it would take on that red color again. But the ground meat wasn't past its sell-by date when they did that.
Mugwumps_has_spoken@reddit
true but it was part of that scandal
FoxSquirrel69@reddit
I worked at Food Lion in 1988 and was under 18 at the time. They wanted me to work until late (like 2a) at night on a school night. I told them no way and walked, told my dad the next day and he agreed. It was very understaffed and just an absolute shit show management wise. That location went out of business before the bleach chicken news hit the airwaves, very poorly run company.
WilliamTK1974@reddit (OP)
That is crazy. I don't recall my friend having any stories like that, but I'm not sure he worked too many shifts during the week.
Grand_Taste_8737@reddit
I worked at Food Lion during that time. At least at my location, the scandal was bogus.
Wrong_Profession_512@reddit
I have never stepped foot in a food lion since
Dazedsince1970@reddit
Yes and we started calling them Food Liar. I still say that to this day.
Careless_Ocelot_4485@reddit
I remember that and it put me off those stores forever.
SubatomicGoblin@reddit
I totally remember it and never walked inside a Food Lion for many years afterward. I still don't even think of shopping there today, though mostly due to convenience considerations.