When a person walks into a grocery store and picks up a package of sliced deli meat, there would be two things that person would do: First, he or she would look at the expiration date, then that person would look at the overall appearance of the meat inside.
Regardless of which action is performed first, the reason behind these actions is straightforward: The consumer is simply trying to visually assess both the safety and quality of the product. Once these criteria have received approval, the shopper might read on to the ingredients and nutritional panel in attempt to further analyze the quality of the product.