ABBIE MILLER
Editor-in-Chief
A Starbucks coffee beverage bought at the c-store on Feb. 4, eight days after the expiration date marked on the glass.
Photo provided anonymously
There are a few things that are certain in life: death, taxes and complaints from the student body about SUNY Fredonia’s food.
Regardless of whether it’s Cranston Marché, Willy C’s, Starbucks or one of the on-campus cafés, finding someone who claims to have had a subpar experience with the food at Fredonia seems to be as easy as locating a piece of litter in New York City.
Up until recently, it appeared that the only on-campus food and beverage provider to dodge these complaints was the c-store.
Considering the types of products sold there, this makes sense. The majority of food that fills the store are pre-packaged items that were created and delivered to Fredonia by nationwide food and beverage vendors. These products tend to be more standardized in quality due to the nature of the companies that produce and ship them as multi-million corporations with extensive quality assurance departments and staffing.
No human-made creation or process is entirely free from error, though.
On Feb. 4, The Leader received reports of a student having purchased a beverage from the c-store that had been marked as having expired on Jan. 27.
Coupled with the concern was photographic evidence of floating congealed specks within the Starbucks coffee beverage, which the student described as having an “off flavor.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “With an exception of infant formula, if the date passes during home storage, a product should still be safe and wholesome if handled properly until the time spoilage is evident.”
While most recently expired foods and beverages meet this threshold for safe consumption, the federal government warns that, “If a food has developed … spoilage characteristics [an off odor, flavor or texture], it should not be eaten.”
Another picture supplied by the anonymous student revealed that the Jan. 27 date on the bottle is not specified as a “best if used by/before” date, a “sell-by” date, a “use-by” date or a “freeze-by” date. This specification would provide further information as to whether the product was indeed expired and spoiled, as it appeared to be, or whether it instead was made or processed incorrectly before or during shipment.
Dan Quagliana, the vice president of the Faculty Student Association (FSA) Board of Directors, indicates that an incident such as this has occurred at least twice this school year so far.
Quagliana, who is considered a chief student advocate to FSA, said, “I brought [the topic of expired foods being sold at the c-store] up once last semester and then again at the most recent meeting [on Feb. 7].”
The response that Quagliana received from FSA was “somewhere along the lines of, ‘We’ll look into it.’” This was promised to Quagliana by FSA’s Director of Retail Operations Chris Zenns, whose responsibility is to oversee the bookstore, c-store and Starbucks.
When asked if he’s received concerns like this in the past regarding expired items being sold at the c-store, Zenns replied, “Yeah. I mean, in retail [and] grocery in general, it happens a lot … [But] generally, you don’t have to worry about such things when they’re rotated thoroughly.”
Someone who has experience working at the c-store, but has chosen to remain anonymous, noted that there’s a lot of circulation of products within the store. As such, this should theoretically be even less likely to occur than in an average grocery store.
With that being said, although the former c-store worker stated that they’d “never heard a complaint” in the semester they worked there, they also conceded that while working there, they’d “gone through certain sections of the store and [searched for] expired food … [which they picked out] a time or two.”
They also mentioned that, when it comes to the training of staff, they “think there definitely could be some work [done].”
“It’s slightly relaxed in [the food service] aspect, where I feel like people who haven’t worked before [should be told] ‘this is exactly how you do this, this is exactly how you do that.’” The anonymous former c-store employee stated that they were “kind of more just thrown into it,” which wasn’t necessarily an issue for them, because they had experience within the food service industry, but could be a problem for those lacking this exposure.
This viewpoint is directly at odds with that which was supplied by Zenns, who referred to the training that c-store employees receive as “pretty in-depth.”
Upon hearing of the most recent report of an expired product being sold at the c-store, Zenns offered a more unexpected explanation for this specific incident.
A Starbucks coffee beverage bought at the c-store on Feb. 4, eight days after the expiration date marked on the glass.
Photo provided anonymously
According to Zenns, the expired product was unique in this case specifically because the c-store had an agreement with Starbucks whereby the only individuals in charge of handling these beverages were the company’s vendors themselves, not c-store staff.
“Until recently, [we] relied on the vendor to supply [these Starbucks drinks] … So, not that we’re completely hands-off of that, but that was probably handled by a third-party [vendor],” Zenns stated.
Now that the c-store is doing its own ordering, including where it regards Starbucks products, Zenns assures that incidents like these are less likely to occur. “There’s some extenuating circumstances that could have added to [the selling of the expired beverage] but an expired product is an expired product and I just encourage people to please bring it to our attention immediately so we can pull it [from the shelves] and we can make it right with you.”
This is part of the standard operating procedure when an expired product is found by c-store staff, according to Zenns. After expired foods are sold, they “refund the item … and then check the remaining items” to make sure that they are within the expiration date on their packaging.
The process regarding food disposal of expired products is not made known to students on the FSA Board of Directors such as Quagliana. According to him, “I would assume someone is checking the expiration dates in the c-store.” Amidst this most recent student report, however, Quagliana states that “either [this is] not being done or it’s being done horribly.”
One solution to prevent incidents such as these from happening is to introduce a more extensive training process for c-store employees. Quagliana said that he believes that this is a process that will eventually occur, stating, “I don’t think it would take a long time to implement either, because there’s always at least one person working at the c-store. A lot of the time, I see two [employees working there].”
However, one barrier to this is the significance to which student concerns such as these are given by FSA. Despite pleas from Zenns to “Keep [FSA] informed and let us know when you have a problem and we’ll be happy to make it right,” Quagliana is steady in his belief that “I don’t think [FSA doesn’t] take it seriously, but they could be doing a lot more.”
Even after additional training, Zenns is cognizant that situations like this are not impossible. “You want to make sure that you bring your products forward so that the [older] dated products are front and center,” Zenn said. “But things get through.”
It remains to be seen whether improvements will be made to the current system of food processing within the c-store, and whether these changes are what students and faculty deem necessary to begin with.
Dan Quagliana, who was interviewed for this article, is the Managing Editor of The Leader.