The shelf life of fresh food delivered to your doorstep varies by as much as three days, depending on the supermarket, new consumer research has found.
Some shoppers received deliveries that had to be consumed within hours – and one was handed a product that had already wilted, according to an investigation by Which?.
As health-conscious consumers look for fewer items on the ingredients list, like preservatives, it’s a trade-off they have to consider.
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“When you pay for a supermarket delivery, you expect your fresh food to have a reasonable amount of time left on it,” said Reena Sewraz, Which? retail editor.
“Our investigation found a striking difference between supermarkets.”
Which? found Waitrose had the shortest average shelf life of all supermarkets, with 7.7 days between delivery and use-by date on average across 29 items ordered by 12 shoppers.
Two packs of Waitrose beef mince and a pack of chicken thighs arrived with a use-by date the day after delivery.
It’s worth noting, however, that Waitrose’s internal data shows that only 0.04% of millions of delivered products were returned due to freshness.
Waitrose had the shortest average shelf life of all supermarkets on their delivered products, Which? found
At the other end of the table was Asda, offering an average of 11 days to consume their perishables.
One tomato and mascarpone pasta sauce ordered had an average of 33.6 days remaining, compared with 12.2 days when bought from Waitrose.
Not too far behind Asda were Morrisons and Ocado, both scoring 10.4 days on average.
Ocado had some particularly long-lasting products, including two packs of honey roast ham with more than 20 days left, compared to 13.13 on average for all retailers.
But they were not faultless – one shopper received basil that was in date but black and wilted.
Other supermarkets came up a little short on at least one of their orders.
One mystery shopper received an opened pot of pineapple from Morrisons that had leaked over other groceries.
Sainsbury’s delivered sweetcorn and two packs of basil with a best-before date on the day of delivery.
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One shopper had packaged fruit arrive in poor condition
What did the supermarkets say?
Waitrose
“We are committed to offering the freshest and highest quality products, reflected in our growing online grocery sales.
“And in response to increasing customer demand for products with simpler ingredients, we have removed preservatives from some of the items in this analysis where they are common, including our houmous.
“Our online grocery pickers are trained to choose the longest dated products they can, and our most recent customer survey showed that the vast majority of our online customers rated the shelf life of our products as good or excellent.”
Tesco
“We work hard to select the freshest items with the longest expiry dates for all our Grocery Home Shopping delivery and Click + Collect orders and we highlight any items that have a shorter shelf life than we would like as part of our Freshness Guarantee.
“If customers are not happy with any items at the time of delivery or collection, they can hand them back for a full refund.”
Ocado
“We are proud of our Fresh+ promise, making us the only UK online grocery retailer to offer a life guarantee on all fresh products.
“Our promise guarantees a minimum number of days of freshness on products ranging from fruit and veg to bread and milk, ensuring customers can trust Ocado to deliver the freshness they are looking for on each and every delivery.
“If customers aren’t 100% happy with a product’s freshness, they can easily arrange an immediate refund online or through our app.”
Asda
“Freshness matters to our customers, so it’s great to see Which? find that Asda delivers the freshest groceries overall.
“We’ve worked hard to improve our online delivery service and availability, and we’re committed to making sure customers get fresh, quality produce and outstanding value, every time they shop with us.”
Morrisons
“We always strive to ensure we deliver items with more than the advertised shelf life and in great condition.
“If items are received with a shorter life than indicated the customer can reject the item on the doorstep or request a refund through the website or app, or by calling our Customer Services team.”
Sainsbury’s
Sainsbury’s did not respond to a request for comment.
