Sell excess and short-dated food and beverage

What food and beverage can I get an offer on?

Shelf-stable products that are safe, in date and properly labeled:

• Grocery: canned goods, pasta, rice, sauces, cereal, baking, condiments, international foods
• Snacks: chips, crackers, cookies, bars, nuts
• Candy and confectionery: chocolate, gummies, hard candy, seasonal candy
• Beverages: water, soda, juice, sports and energy drinks, coffee and tea, powdered drink mixes

We do not make offers on alcohol. Refrigerated and frozen products are rare exceptions; ask before including them. Products made mainly of meat, poultry or egg fall under USDA inspection rules rather than FDA and have their own labeling marks.

Typical reasons food becomes surplus: dating too short for major retail, a packaging redesign, a flavor discontinued, a promotion that over-ordered, or a retailer rejecting a load at its distribution center.

Which date is on your product?

Food date labeling is not standardized in the US, apart from infant formula. Know which one you are selling:

Some states restrict selling food after certain dates. Closeout buyers mostly want product with enough life left to sell through. The useful way to think about it is in brackets: comfortable dating suits almost every buyer, short dating suits fast discount outlets that turn goods within weeks, and anything at or past best-by narrows the field to the few outlets that sell it legally where they are. Always quote remaining life as of today, earliest date first. Past-best-by food is a separate conversation; say so up front rather than mixing it into a dated lot.

For baby food and formula, see our baby page. Rules are stricter.

Damage: cans, bottles and cases

Packaging damage is the second big value driver after dating.

• Cans: light dents on the body are usually fine. Dents on the seam, rust, swelling, bulging lids or leaks are not resaleable for eating.
• Bottles and pouches: broken seals, leaks and swollen pouches are out.
• Cases: crushed cases with sound product inside are bump and dent.
• Leakers: one leaking juice or soda case can soak a pallet, attract insects and stain everything nearby. Remove leakers before pickup.

Temperature and storage history

Chocolate blooms and melts; gummies stick together; some drinks and oils change in heat. A load of candy stored in an unconditioned warehouse through summer may be in date but not saleable as new. Tell us where the goods were held and for how long. Food must also be stored away from chemicals, pests and moisture under FDA food safety rules.

Labeling rules for resale

For sale in the US, food labels need the product name, net quantity, ingredient list, allergen declaration for the major food allergens, nutrition facts, and the name and place of business of the maker, packer or distributor. Imported food must carry this in English. If any of this is missing or wrong, the product may need relabeling before US resale. Export markets have their own labeling languages and registration rules; export buyers handle those, but it limits which markets a product can go to.

Who buys short-dated food and drink?

The outlets for closeout food are narrower than for general goods, and each wants something specific:

• Discount and salvage grocers sell bump and dent and short-dated product every day, and their shoppers expect it.
• Dollar and variety stores want branded snacks, candy and drinks with enough dating to clear their shelves.
• Bin stores take snacks and candy as add-on traffic builders, mostly with longer dating.
• Export buyers to the Caribbean, Latin America and West Africa take canned goods, snacks and drinks, but need longer dating to cover ocean transit and customs, and may need labels in the local language or registration in the destination market.
• Food banks and donation programs are an alternative to selling for goods close to date; they are not resale but can offer a tax angle worth asking your accountant about.

Matching a lot to the right outlet is most of what decides the price. A pallet of chips with a short date is worth more to a salvage grocer down the road than to an exporter who needs weeks to get it on a shelf.

How to prepare a food lot for an offer

1. List each SKU: brand, product, size, UPC, case pack.
2. Add the date and lot code per lot, and say which kind of date it is.
3. Count damaged cases separately and describe the damage.
4. Note storage: ambient warehouse, climate controlled, or cold storage, with dates.
5. Flag allergen, labeling or recall issues you know about.
6. Give retail or wholesale price per unit.
7. Photograph the date codes, a full case, any damage, and each pallet side.
8. Give pallet count, gross weight and location; say whether there is a dock.
9. State channel conditions: no online, export only, not near your retail customers.

Mistakes we see on food closeouts

• Waiting until the final weeks of dating to look for a buyer
• Shipping leakers with sound product
• Storing candy and chocolate in hot buildings
• Rounding dates instead of listing them per lot
• Not mentioning a label error until the buyer finds it
• Forgetting that drinks are heavy: a full truck may be fewer pallets than expected

A worked example

For illustration only, not market data: a snack brand over-produces a seasonal flavor. It has several pallets of cases left across a few SKUs, with the best-by date listed per SKU, held in a climate-controlled warehouse. A small number of cases are crushed.

The brand asks for no resale in its home retail channels until the flavor's season ends, and prefers discount and export outlets. That is agreed in writing. Food buyers usually move fast, so the offer is weighted on how much dating remains when the goods reach them.

To see food loads from the buying side, visit wholesale closeout food and beverage. If donation is an option for you, compare it with selling in donation versus liquidation. Send your SKU list with dates through the offer form here.