I'd return it. And I eat everything :-)
Don't tempt fate...

It's salsa!! What could grow in it??
But on principal I would return it....it should not have been on the shelf.
Linda C

I disagree! Eat it! Enjoy it....if it was from 3-4 years ago or longer fine....but last year?...or even the year prior? Salsa will be fine. I find it kind of crazy that other folks have said toss it!

Duane

If I bought it at a regular grocery store, I would open it and if it wasn't fuzzy or slimey and smelled okay - I would also eat it. I never buy food at the dollar store or places that buy up big lots of old or discontinued food, as I don't trust where it came from or how it was handled in transportation.

Yes, I'd also eat it. Many canned goods have "expiration dates" that aren't really expiration dates, they usually say "best if used by".

If there's a deterioration, it's usually in quality, not in safety.

Annie

Hmm, tough call. It shouldn't have been on the shelf, so there's the temptation to shove it in the store's face and ask if that's their regular practice. (Out of date products on the shelf push my buttons.)

But then it is canned, and it is high acid. If the lid isn't bulging (or loose) and it isn't discolored or bubbling. I might just be tempted.

Probably better safe than sorry.

Trust me, salsa can grow things. Definitely mold. But remember, the date on the can or jar doesn't mean that the contents magically go bad the next day, just that, as the OP said, they are "past their prime". Look at it, smell it, even take a small taste. If nothing screamed "Ugh!", I'd probably eat it.

Reminds me of a funny experience. I had some friends over for dinner one night and these friends are super conscious about things like cleanliness/perfectness.

We were all eating and enjoying something when one of them noticed that the bottle of hot sauce we were using had an expiration date over a year ago. At this point we all had a laugh about it, but they refused to eat it any further.

I recently finished it, a year after this event.

There are definitely things you don't want to take risks with, but there are other things where honestly you could eat it 5 years after the expiration date with no worries.

Salsa can certainly grow all sorts of ugly and smelly things, but in a sealed, never opened container? If it looked and smelled OK, I would eat it.

I agree with others that if I purchased it that way from the store I would be tempted to complain to the store about it, but I would still eat it if it was something I really wanted.

I am not telling *you* to eat it or vouching for it's safety, I am simply telling you that I, personally, would eat it if it passed the eye/nose test.

"It's salsa!! What could grow in it??"

Salsa Recall:

--Certain peanut butter, cheese, SALSA, cream cheese bagel spreads, dips and spreads produced by Parkers Farm Inc. of Coon Rapids, Minn. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture said product sampling determined some of the products to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria.

Headline: Pesticide-Tainted Salsa Made Kansas Restaurant Patrons Ill

About 20 people fell suddenly ill in late August (2009) while dining at the restaurant. More than a dozen people were taken to the hospital. [Not a bacterial growth, but a deadly substance in the salsa, none the less.]
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"Salsa can certainly grow all sorts of ugly and smelly things, but in a sealed, never opened container?"

That's a common misconception. Ready-to-eat food products have potential to cause illness. Some organisms can survive the heat of cooking or the heat process during canning and the bacteria can form a deadly toxin; and the cold of refrigeration may be able to grow bacteria into a toxin once opened and refrigerated. Microorganisms such as Listeria monocytogenes, or Clostridium botulinum, fall into this category. Refrigeration doesn't assure there won't be bacteria growth. Lack of oxygen in a processed jar doesn't assure there won't be bacteria growth either.

Anerobic microorganisms grow best without oxygen (that sealed jar). A sealed jar is a perfect place for many pathogenic bacteria to grow.

Spoilage bacteria produce the slime, toxins, off-colors, and odors associated with food spoilage in the log phase of growth. Pathogenic bacteria can grow and produce large numbers or toxic compounds and these are usually NOT detected by off odors, flavors, etc.

Now to the original post.... Just because the use-by, or sell-by date has expired, doesn't mean the contents aren't perfectly safe to eat. As Annie1992 pointed out, the quality and texture may alter, but it doesn't mean it's unfit for human consumption. Just as an unexpired date doesn't guarantee food safety either. We are more inclined to trust the unexpired date, than an expired date. There is potential for anerobic bacteria to grow into a toxin in EVERY jar, it just doesn't often happen.

-Grainlady

I would give it a try. Just a small taste at first. As others have said, if the jar lid is still intact and not domed up or it doesn't smell funny it should be fine. What flavor is it anyway? NancyLouise

Yesbut...in the instances grain lady cited, the lysteria etc were present in the stuff before it became canned salsa with a sell by date.
I'd return it....just because. More than once I have marched myself back to the store in the middle of dinner prep because the bag of spinach dated next week was rotten or the chicken smelled off.
Unless it were somethning I had in my pantry for a long time, I would march it right back.
Linda C

It's Pace Tequila Lime Salsa. Actually, I had a coupon for a free Pace product (check out their 'Hand pick & win' contest), so I'm not out any cash. But I too thought that it shouldn't have been on the store shelf. The fact that it was the only one should have been a red flag and I should have checked the expiration date before I brought it home. I try to make doing that an automatic thing with all foods as I'm finding more and more things out-of-date being sold.
Anyway, thanks for all the feedback! I think, since it's been discontinued, I'll go ahead and give it a try. If it's good and I like it, I've got the list of ingredients and I can try to replicate it.
Cathy

Safety and quality are two separate issues here. As Grainlady points out, at ANY point in the life of a canned/jarred good, something could happen to damage the seal and the food could become contaminated, so it is always a good idea to check the condition of the seal of a can or jar before opening and reject anything that seems compromised. Also, contaminants can enter food in the canning process at the factory, so also good to inspect the open jars of stuff, although some contaminants you just can't see, so that you have to just watch the news for I guess!

The second issue is quality. After a year, most canned goods loose quality in that the color and taste fades along with the remanants of nutritional value, but that doesn't mean it will make you sick to eat it. Some canned goods loose their zing even sooner, some it is probably not noticable.

Now, with the nature of probability and the way it works, the longer a can or jar sits around, the more likely it is that something will happen to compromise the contents. But the probability doesn't grow by leaps and bounds. One day after the expiration date isn't dramatically different than the day before. But it does ad up. And it also depends on a gazillion other factors in the life of the product. Unless I had evidence of the seal being broken, I would take it back due to quality concerns mainly. Or I would open it and taste it and then decide.

BTW, this is one reason why I home can completely without fear. IMHO, I am much more likely to create a high quality safe product at home than a factory, even though factory stuff in the US is very safe thanks to food safety regulations and our litigous society. But my stuff is just as good if not better if I pay attention to what I am doing, lol! And educate myself on food safety.

Why would you consider eating it? If you bought it from a store shelf I'd return it in a heartbeat!
I've been sick way too many times from unknown sources. Something that is 6-18 months out of date? It's history!

I have gotten in the habit of checking the expiration dates on everything I buy from the stores, even the high priced stores. One time I was just fed up at all the products I found that were past the expiration date, around 4 or 5 items, so I loaded them up in a basket and took them to the service desk, unloaded them, and told the lady they were all out of date, and just walked away. I was at another store, this is one of the stores with a supposedly good reputation, and found a package of cold cuts with a sale sticker on it. I looked for the date, but couldn't find it. I suspected it might be under the sticker, so I actually peeled the sticker back till I could see the date, and sure enough, it was a couple days past the sell by date. That's not to mean it was bad, but I thought it was wrong to cover up the sell by date. I'm so tired of grocery stores. I was telling DH that if I stopped shopping at every store that made me mad, I'd really have to step up the garden and be better about growing my own food!

Sally

Speaking of out of date - at Safeway, which we rarely shop, I bought a fresh whole turkey breast- the use by date was printed on their price sticker. When I started to prepare it, the processors imprinted use by date on the package was 5 days sooner than Safeway's printed use by date - of course it was past the processor's use by date. I did return it for another one, which was a big inconvenience due to the bad weather and it was over the holidays. This was the first time I had bought anything at this Safeway - a huge, newly remodeled store.

That doesn't surprise me. It was at one of Safeway's sister stores that I peeled back the sale sticker to find the old sell by date.

Sally