GNC Admits to Selling Expired Product

PITTSBURGH--An Aug. 27 edition of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) confirmed that General Nutrition Companies (GNC), a division of Royal Numico NV, had knowingly put out-dated products on its shelves. In the article, it was suggested that the slow-down in the industry might have instigated this questionable move.

This news started as a rumor last week when it hit newswires that the Florida attorney general's office had begun an investigation into anonymous and consumer complaints about expired GNC products being sold. Lisa Raleigh, an assistant attorney general in Florida, told WSJ that a wide cross-section of GNC products were found to be out of date in GNC stores.

The author of the article, WSJ staff reporter Jesse Eisinger, alleged that former senior vice president Tom Down told 25 vice presidents and other midlevel executives to "take product that wasn't rancid and put it on the floor." Down was terminated from the company this past March for reasons that the company declined to say; he had been with the company for 13 years. However, other GNC insiders said that Down alone would not have had the power alone to direct this action.

Whatever the truth is, Mike Meyers, GNC's president and chief operating officer (COO), stated that neither he, Numico nor Greg Horn, GNC's chief executive officer (CEO), had "directed or condoned such actions."

Some GNC insiders estimated the directive took place in early February but that it was rescinded within a few weeks time due to complaints from store managers and executives. GNC told WSJ that it was immediately pulling expired product from store shelves and added that sell-by dates were not legally required on its products.

David Seckman, executive director of the National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA), stated that using expiration dates is part of NNFA's Good Manufacturing Practices (GMAs). "We've communicated the importance of these dates to our members, and if they weren't important, we wouldn't have included them in our GMPs," he said.