'Best before' dates

[Newportnobby]

BB dates have been much in the press lately with Morrisons announcing they will no longer be putting them on their milk cartons, the attitude being we should just adopt the 'smell test'.
I can see folks all over the country in  supermarkets undoing the plastic cap then removing the diaphragm to smell the milk

Anyway, having been shopping in Tescos Wednesday morning I thought I'd buy a Pukka Pie as they make a good quick meal with some oven chips. I picked up a Chicken & Mushroom one but the date on the box was 2007!!!! Likewise a Steak one, and also a Creamy Chicken one......



I queried this with a Tesco person and we came to the conclusion it must have been a printing error. Just to be sure, I telephoned Pukka Pies this morning and left a message asking them to return my call, being quite surprised when they rang back quite promptly. I was informed they don't put a year on their dates and that, in fact, it was a batch code but thanks to me pointing it out they had changed their method of batch numbers.
Me, being the suspicious git I am, checked one I have in the freezer and the date on that is Jan 1348 so I think I now tend to believe they told the truth

[mojo]

My local McColl shop had for sale on the 4th Jan blue top & green top milk with Use By dates of 5th & 6th Jan. Not much time to use it all unless you make a rice pud!
The supplier was Safeway owned by Morrisons.
Maurice C.

[stevewalker]

Unless they all do it, I'll not be shopping where they remove the BB dates - how else do you know which is the freshest on the shelf if you are shopping for a while ahead? I don't want to buy something for next week and find that it's turned to cardboard by then! We often have a number of bottles of milk in the fridge - we use huge amounts - and rely on the dates to decide which bottle to open first.

[Dorsetmike]

At the other end of the scale I had a 6 pt blue top milk dated Dec 11,  it was still good on the 16th.
I also notice some veg now has a week number denoting when harvested, no mention of best by and if you don't keep track of week numbers how do you know even an approximation of when to use by.

[Ossian]

Your freezer goes back to 1348?    Be very worried about Bubonic Plague!

[Jim Easterbrook]

We often have a number of bottles of milk in the fridge - we use huge amounts - and rely on the dates to decide which bottle to open first.

You need a system, e.g. newest purchase goes to the back, or write the purchase date on each bottle when it arrives.

I think a lot of people don't appreciate the difference between "use by" and "best before". The former implies a potential health risk if it's past the date, the latter merely a risk of it being not as good as it might have been. I have bottled beers where the "best before" date is 10 or 20 years after I bought them, and I've still let them go over. One I had the other day (best before end 2007) was a bit disappointing though.

[stevewalker]

There's no hope of that. The kids put the fridge stuff away and it's quite common for an extra bottle to be lying down, hidden under other stuff, so they'd not notice it and put the new one in the door. We've also had cases where the new bottle has a shorter BB date than one that's already in the fridge, that has come from a different shop.

Actually milk is not normally a problem - it'd be very rare it stayed in the fridge long enough to reach it's BB date, never mind went off. It is more things like cake, biscuits and some savouries, where using the wrong one means that by the time you get to the next pack, it's gone soft, hard or flavourless.

[PLD]

It has all got rather blown out of proportion and hyped up by some sections of the media...
All they are actually doing is changing two little words from "Use By" to "Best Before". There is still a date on the packaging and is still the same margin from the time of production.

They are crediting their customers with the intelligence to make a decision for themselves whether it is good to use, so it is rather bemusing reading some of the comments from individuals for whom it is apparently the end of civilisation- effectively anouncing that they are incapable of making such a decision...

[Bealman]

I think the use by date is a bit conservative anyway. A few days over ain't gonna make much difference. And yes, the protuberance on one's face is useful, especially when it comes to milk.

[Malc]

We had extra milk over Christmas and one bottle got stashed away. We found it a week over thevBB date. It looked ok, smelt ok, but formed globules in coffee.

[Bealman]

Probably good you didn't drink it 

[GlenEglise]

Best berfore dates? Here was me thinking this was about either Boris Johnson or Andrew Duke of York.

So sad it is just about food.............

[joe cassidy]

Actually milk is not normally a problem - it'd be very rare it stayed in the fridge long enough to reach it's BB date, never mind went off. It is more things like cake, biscuits and some savouries, where using the wrong one means that by the time you get to the next pack, it's gone soft, hard or flavourless.

Remember the good old metal cake tin ?

[GAD]

We often have a number of bottles of milk in the fridge - we use huge amounts - and rely on the dates to decide which bottle to open first.

You need a system, e.g. newest purchase goes to the back, or write the purchase date on each bottle when it arrives.

I do that with wine, there's a couple of older bottles left, seems I bought them on Tuesday.

[Papyrus]

We use goats' milk rather than cows' and we regularly let it go past its use-by date, sometimes as long as a week, and it is still OK. Same with red meat - the longer you leave it, the tenderer it becomes. Wouldn't do it with chicken, though.

On the subject of printed dates, I once bought a pack of sausages that was labelled 'Best before May 23 AD'. They were surprisingly good as it happens.

Cheers,

Chris