Understanding Best Before and Use-By Dates

There is a difference between food labels.

When buying food in the UK, you see best-before or use-by dates. These dates are important to know.

Understanding these dates helps keep food safe and reduces waste. Food can be bad if stored too long or at the wrong temperature.

Food can have bad bacteria and cause sickness. The difference between labels is important because some foods get bad over time.

A use-by date is about food safety, and a best before date is about food quality.

The use-by date is about safety. The Food Standards Agency says not to eat food after this date, even if it looks okay.

A use-by date has a date but no time. You can eat the food until midnight on this date, unless it's cooked or frozen.

You can eat food after the best-before date, but it might not taste good.

Use-by dates are on foods that go bad quickly, like meat or salads. You must store these foods correctly for the date to work.

If a label says to refrigerate, keep it in the fridge at 5C or below. You can cook food until the use-by date and then cool it.

Cooking kills bad things in food, giving you a little more time to use it.

You must eat cooked food within 48 hours or freeze it. If you freeze it, label what it is and the date.

Don't eat, cook, or freeze food after the use-by date.

A best-before date is sometimes shown as BBE. It's about the food's quality, not safety.

After the best-before date, the food is still safe but might not be at its best.

This type of label is on frozen, dried, or tinned foods. The Food Standards Agency says the best-before date is only accurate if the food is stored correctly.

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