Sometimes I feel like a broken record trying to defend the importance of sticking to the humble ‘use by’ date and, conversely, reassuring people they won’t drop dead from eating a can of beans that’s just past its ‘best before’. So you can imagine my surprise this morning to find every newspaper and tv and radio news programme talking about the new date labelling guidance produced by the Agency and Defra. Finally, I have the perfect opportunity to clear up some of the confusion around date labels.
Put in the simplest terms, they both mean 'what they say on the tin’.
The date that we really need to take notice of is the ‘use by’ date – by law this has to be put on food that ‘goes off’ quickly and tells you how long food will stay safe. Don’t be tempted to eat food after the 'use by' date on the label, even if it looks and smells fine – the ‘sniff test’ is a myth and as most food poisoning bacteria won’t change the way your food looks or smells, there could be something lurking that could make you ill.
'Best before' dates, however, are more about food quality. Tucking into a pack of biscuits or crisps a few weeks past its ‘best before’ date is unlikely to do you any harm but they might not be as crisp or fresh-tasting as when they were new. Nobody likes wasting food and the new guidance has been developed to help manufacturers label food appropriately and encourage them to do away with unnecessary ‘sell by’ and ‘display until’ dates. We’re hoping this will result in clearer and simpler labelling, which will help you reduce waste and stay safe.
It can be easy to trivialise food poisoning, but with more than a million cases each year, 20,000 of which require hospital treatment, every case is worth avoiding.