Why do food items that are supposed to be stored in a ‘cool dark place’ seem to be fine sitting on well-lit and open supermarket shelves?
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They’re most likely spending less time on the grocery store shelf than they will in your home. Also a grocery store is probably more concerned with making sure product they want to sell is, well, easily visible to people interested in buying it. So it might not be ideal for storing the product, but the grocery store is really hoping to sell it, not store it
Items on supermarket shelves typically don’t remain there for very long, especially at major supermarkets. The time they sit on the shelves in the stores is usually not an issue. Supermarkets are also climate controlled so that helps. For items that have strict storage requirements they will be kept in the refrigerator or cooler sections.
They aren’t open yet.
Oxygen oxidizes. Once the product is exposed to air it immediately starts deteriorating. That’s why the “best by” date may be several months/years away but you have to use it quickly after it’s opened.
“Cool, dark place” is a simple, punchy way of saying “out of direct sunlight and not near a heat source.” Supermarkets are air conditioned and don’t have interior windows. That’s all it really takes.
As others have said, items don’t usually linger on shelves for too long, and if they do, they get pulled.
But also, when they say “dark” they mean away from sunlight. Your average supermarket usually doesn’t get very much actual sunlight, and the LED or fluorescent lighting isn’t likely to bleach/alter/warm the product like sunlight will.
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