A woman is urging viewers to check the expiration dates of their food products after she unknowingly frosted a cake with expired Duncan Hines Creamy Vanilla Frosting, ruining the cake. She says she purchased the frosting only a few weeks ago but that it expired in March of 2021—four years ago.
“So, we just made a box cake, Butter Pecan,” Colorado-based TikTok user Sabrina (@seriouslynaturalsabrina) says. She shows her 20,000 followers the empty box of Betty Crocker Super Moist Butter Pecan cake mix.
Then, she sets it down next to the fully baked cake and picks up a can of Duncan Hines Creamy Vanilla Frosting. “We picked this up as well,” she continues, referencing the frosting.
The content creator shows the fully frosted cake, and there doesn’t appear to be any issues with it. But the flavor of the frosting is a different story.
“We’re trying the frosting, and it tasted like plastic,” Sabrina says, tilting the can to reveal the expiration in fine print at the bottom of it.
“So, I’m looking at it, and from what it says, that’s Match of 2021. We just bought this, what, a couple of weeks ago?” she says.
“Why is there a product on the shelf that is best by 2021?” she asks. “It looks fine, but it tastes disgusting.”
“I’mma take it back to the store,” she says. “It’s four years old, and I ruined a cake.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Sabrina via TikTok comment and direct message as well as Walmart via media contact form.
Viewers weigh in
Sabrina’s video garnered over 21,000 views. Like Sabrina, some have noticed this becoming a common trend. And others criticized the shopper for not checking the product’s expiration date.
“I ran into 7 cans of expired baby formula at Walmart like 2 yrs expired,” one said.
“Don’t you check dates before purchasing?” another asked.
“Your telling me you don’t check expiration dates on everything you buy at the store? I do that and at home to,” another criticized.
Did the shopper return the frosting?
In a follow-up video, Sabrina reveals that she returned both the cake mix and frosting.
“I wanna go someplace else completely to get the cake mix. I’m debating whether or not I’m going to make the frosting,” she says.
Because of this incident, she is now skeptical of pre-made frosting.
“I always just, you know, use the frosting. Kind of put a bad taste in my mouth,” she says.
The content creator then addresses her critics.
“For the people who are saying, ‘All you have to do is look at the expiration date,’ no sh*t. I do that for most things,” she says. “Not for every single thing that I go shopping.”
“It should not have been on the shelf,” she concludes.
Rotating stock
In 2023, in a r/walmart subreddit, user Simian_Garfunkel posted a photo of The Good Crisp (a Great Value Pringles dupe) that expired in 2021 on the shelf at Walmart. “Rotation, folks. Please, for the love of Sam, rotate,” they pleaded.
Rotating stock means that store employees move the products with the earliest expiration dates to the front of the shelves so that those products are purchased first. Although BoxHero claims the retail giant rotates its stock, Walmart employees have said otherwise.
“I agree with you, but Walmart doesn’t allow their stocking associates enough time to rotate product in. This is what happens when you prioritize quantity over quality,” one Redditor stated.
“I have been yelled at and almost coached over not moving fast enough and that’s just stocking as fast as fast as possible, never mind trying to rotate,” a second agreed.
@seriouslynaturalsabrina Not only tastes disgusting but smells really, really bad too! I want my money back. check the dates! #ruinedcake #walmart #expiredfood #expiredfrosting #wtf #duncanhines #expirationdates ♬ original sound – BrinaPerk
Because every Walmart store is different, always check the expiration date to prevent this.
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