Smart Pantry · Guides
Best before vs use-by: what the dates on your food mean
A plain guide to the dates on UK food labels, and what you can still save before it goes in the bin.
The short answer
Use-by is about safety. Don't eat food after its use-by date, even if it looks and smells fine.
Best before is about quality. Food is usually still safe after its best before date. It just may not taste or feel as good.
Use-by dates
A use-by date tells you when food stops being safe to eat. You'll find it on food that goes off quickly, such as meat products and ready-to-eat bagged salads. Eating it after that date could make you ill.
The date only holds if the food is stored the way the label says, including after you open it. If the pack says keep refrigerated, keep it in a fridge at 5°C or below. Food that isn't stored properly can become unsafe before its use-by date.
You can still save food before its use-by date
The use-by date isn't the end of the road if you act in time. On or before the date, you can:
Freeze it. Bacteria can't grow on frozen food, so it won't get worse in the freezer. Keep the freezer at −18°C, follow the label's freezing and defrosting instructions, and write what it is and the date you froze it on the bag. Once it's defrosted, use it within 24 hours.
Cook it. Cool it, keep it in the fridge, and eat it within 48 hours, or freeze it to eat later.
Best before dates
A best before date (sometimes "best before end", or BBE) tells you when food may start to lose quality. You'll see it on frozen food like peas, chips and ice cream, dried food like pasta and rice, tins like baked beans and tomatoes, and cheese.
After the best before date the food is usually safe to eat, as long as it was stored as the label says. Use your senses to decide: look for mould on bread, taste a biscuit or a crisp to see if it's stale, and smell dairy to check it hasn't soured.
What about "display until" and "sell by"?
Those dates are for shop staff, to help them manage stock. You can ignore them. Go by the use-by or best before date instead.
Why food gets binned anyway
Most food isn't thrown away because people don't understand the dates. It's thrown away because nobody remembered it was there: the bagged salad at the back of the fridge, the second jar of the same sauce, the yoghurts behind the milk.
Smart Pantry remembers the dates for you
Snap your supermarket receipt and every item goes in with a date. Your kitchen is sorted by what needs eating first, and one reminder at 8am tells you when something is close, while there's still time to freeze or cook it.
Get Smart Pantry on the App Store. Free to try, no account needed. iPhone and iPad.
Source: GOV.UK, Understanding food labelling (section 2, best before and use-by dates). Always follow the storage instructions on the pack. If you're unsure whether food is safe, don't eat it.