Reducing food waste.

If everyone optimizes for taking the ‘fresher’ product, the older one will sit on the shelf and eventually the store will throw it out.

I will buy it at at discount. If I need something and it's the last one (nothing to compare against), I will buy that also.

if it's in a can or box with a date that far into the future, using the word "fresh" seems incorrect in all aspect to me.

if you want fresh, you shop on the outer walls of the super market. anything on the interior aisles is not fresh. I wish it were a thing that as you continued to the innermost sections the "food" became more processed, and instead of aisles, it was just a spiral to that point.

This is probably a country specific thing. In France the vegetables will be right in the center of the shop.

The butcher/cheese/fish section can be anywhere, it depends on the shop.

Regardless, the point remains. Peanut butter is never fresh if it's in a grocery store. If you want fresh peanut butter, you'll need to find a way to buy it unsealed within the day made from the manufacturer or make it yourself.

Really, fresh peanut butter would really just be blended fresh peanuts until it reaches the consistency you want. That's a lot easier to do than making your own salad dressing.

I am not sure how this applies to my comment, but I agree that if peanut butter is so simple to make then it is best to do it yourself (we do not use peanut butter and it is not sold in normal supermarkets here so I am glad to have learnt something :))

I did at one time grind peanuts(not fresh) with Bamix... It is not actually too fast process. I would say that some salad dressings are much less work. At least without proper tooling.

Still, now I wonder what exactly would be "fresh" peanut?