What’s the difference between use-by or best before dates and is it important?  

Food produced or imported for sale in Australia is regulated by the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, which includes the requirement to display date marks and allows consumers to be informed of the nature and ingredients of foods before they buy them. 

Food suppliers are responsible for deciding, for their product, whether that date mark is a use-by or best-before, and there is a big difference. 

Date marks on foods give a guide to how long food can be kept before it begins to deteriorate or may become unsafe to eat. 

The image shows a set of organized shelves stocked with various food items, likely in a food bank or pantry.

Foods that must be eaten before a certain time for health or safety reasons are marked with a use-by date. Foods should not be eaten after the use-by date and can’t legally be sold after this date because they may pose a health or safety risk. 

Most foods have a best-before date and are safe to eat past the stamped date. Foods such as pasta and pasta sauces, chips and biscuits are examples of foods that would be considered safe to eat past the best-before date. There is no hard-and-fast rule about when these products can no longer be consumed however it is important to note that foods that are past their best-before date may have lost some of their quality or nutritional value. 

Food labels usually also contain specific storage conditions if they are required in order for a product to keep until its best-before or use-by date, e.g. ‘milk should be kept refrigerated’. 

The suppliers and manufacturers can also advise us of particular products which are suitable for freezing, which can extend the life of meat for example as long as we freeze the product three days prior to the “Best Before” date we can extend the life of that meat between 3-12 months depending on the product as we have temperature-controlled freezers which are constantly monitored. At Foodbank we cannot freeze any product past is use-by date to extend the life of the product for any reason 

It is important to note that all frozen foods once defrosted must be consumed within 24 hours.