Stop & Shop will pay $75,000 in penalties after investigators found the supermarket chain mislabeled beef and poultry and sold spoiled products in Ocean County, officials said.
The probe began after complaints surfaced at the Toms River store and later widened to all county locations. Inspectors reported systemic issues with dating practices, saying meat was marked with display dates instead of packaging dates, giving shoppers a false sense of freshness. Some expiration labels stretched beyond wholesaler guidelines, according to investigators.
This led to already-spoiled meat being put on shelves to purchase.
Investigators noted that the company no longer used in-store butchers and instead relied on prepackaged products from outside suppliers. In one case, a shipment delivered in February was not opened until March but was labeled as if freshly packed that day.
Stop & Shop has agreed to overhaul labeling procedures at all 46 New Jersey stores. The settlement was negotiated by the Ocean County Department of Consumer Affairs with support from the state Attorney General’s Office.
County officials said the company cooperated with the investigation, though it initially described the issue as a labeling error.
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