Best before, use by, expiry: what the date on the pack is really promising

Two people look at the same date on a packet of biscuits. One throws it away the following morning; the other eats biscuits from a tin that has been open since Diwali. Both are reading the same label, and neither is reading it correctly.

What each phrase means

The distinction is not pedantry - it is the difference between a stale biscuit and a food safety incident. Dry, shelf-stable, low-moisture foods carry best before dates because their failure mode is quality. Perishables carry use-by dates because their failure mode is bacteria.

A date is conditional on storage

Every date assumes the storage instruction on the pack was honoured all the way from factory to kitchen. A chilled product that spent the afternoon in a warm delivery bag has consumed part of its shelf life, whatever the printed date says.

• Check that chilled and frozen items arrive genuinely cold, and refuse ones that do not.
• Frozen food that has softened and been refrozen is a real risk - look for ice crystals inside the pack or a block that has fused.
• Oils, nuts and flours stored near heat go rancid well before their date.
• Once opened, the pack date stops applying. Use the after-opening instruction, which is often much shorter.
• Repacking into a home container loses the date and batch number. Write the date on the jar - it takes three seconds and settles arguments later.

Where to be strict, and where to use judgement

Strict: anything chilled and ready to eat, meat, fish, eggs past their date, soft cheeses, cut fruit, infant food, and any pack that is swollen, leaking, rusted or whose seal has gone. A bulging pack or a hissing tin is a bacteria signal - discard it without tasting.

Judgement: dry pasta, rice, pulses, spices, biscuits, honey and sealed tinned goods a little past a best-before date. These degrade in flavour and potency rather than becoming dangerous. Spices lose aroma, flours go stale, honey crystallises and is fine.

The one test that always applies is your own senses. Musty, bitter, fermented or paint-like smells mean discard, date or no date. And never taste something to decide whether it has spoiled - smell and look instead.

The FSSAI number is a real check

Every packaged food sold in India must display a 14-digit FSSAI licence or registration number with the FSSAI logo. It identifies the licensed manufacturer, packer or importer, and it can be looked up on the FSSAI portal.

Two practical uses. If a pack carries no number, or one that does not resolve, that alone is reason to put it back. And if something goes wrong, the number plus the batch code is exactly what a complaint to the state food safety authority needs in order to be actionable.

If you find something wrong in a pack

• Keep the pack, the batch code and the bill. Photograph all three before anything else.
• Do not throw away the remaining contents - they are the evidence.
• Complain to the seller and, for anything involving safety, to the state food safety authority or through the FSSAI consumer grievance route.
• For online orders, report through the platform too - marketplaces are required to take listings down when a product is found non-compliant.

Most of the time this is undramatic housekeeping. But it is the housekeeping that makes recalls work, and a recall only reaches the people who kept the batch number.