5 Target Items Employees Say You Should Never Buy
Target's grocery section offers some really good deals for customers, from canned goods to frozen products, dairy, fresh produce, snacks, drinks and more. The retail chain often has very competitive pricing on name-brand products, making it worth going to the store for groceries alone. However, Target does not operate the same way dedicated grocery stores do, and this impacts certain items sold in stores. "Target is a department store that just happens to also sell groceries. It's like going to Buffalo Wild Wings for a burger," one Redditor said. According to some Target employees, customers should be wary about picking up certain goods. Here are 5 items Target staff say you should never buy without checking—and then double checking—the sell-by dates.
Basil Pesto Sauce
One customer who used to be an employee says they would frequently find out of date dairy and jarred products. "Found several of the basil pesto sauce that were dated October/November 2024," the Redditor said. "I told an employee and she said she would let the market team know. I used to be a Market TL [team leader] briefly. I remember getting into arguments with the manager and assistant manager about the countless expired items and not having time to clear the shelves properly. Or the milk shelves being gross from caked in milk residue, but that's for another day."
Baby Food
Current and former employees recommend customers always check the sell-by dates on baby food. "Back in the day we used to do freshness Friday where the whole morning shift (cashiers and floor support) before open would go down an aisle in grocery and make sure everything was FIFO order, we also did the baby food aisle which was always terrible, so much waste…" one Redditor said. "I remember a time when we'd do "Freshness Fridays". The whole store would pick a section and check dates. It was so fun to check baby food and find stuff 3 months out of code," another commented.
Cookie Dough
One Target worker warned potential customers about expired cookie dough in stores. "Sometime last year I realized the sugar cookie dough was expired so I went to get more for a guest and turns out every single mix in stock expired a year before that… we had over 100 bags of it. What a wild day! I told the guest to try another Target instead since we couldn't sell any of these," the employee said.
Taco Seasoning
One Target staff member found taco seasoning that had expired years ago. "The record for dry grocery was like 4 years expired, it was taco seasoning or something," the employee said. "The guest found a bunch. I don't think that lady returned. I remember finding so much moldy products in P Fresh, and my ETL [executive team leader] told me to forget about it and to work on the priorities…"
Expired Products
The general consensus seems to be there isn't enough staff to stay on top of expired items, especially dry goods. "My bf works for Target and recently pulled a ton of mayo that was expired and cereal that was expired by almost 2 years," one Redditor shared. "We had some baby food peanut butter crisps which expired back in May. That was last week," another shared. "Our store rlly struggles with this too but they refuse to give grocery more workers. We literally were reported several times for selling expired meat and diary products. And we've only been open for less than a year," another commented.
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