Many Canadian consumers treat “best before” dates like expiry dates, with 25% relying on them as an indicator of food safety and 65% throwing out unopened food because the date had passed according to a 2022 survey by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and the Angus Reid Institute.
However, these dates actually have nothing to do with food safety.
Here’s what the different dates printed on our food mean and how to tell what can be salvaged or trashed when cleaning out your fridge.
Update June 2023: The Grocery Affordability Report by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food is recommending that the Government investigate how eliminating “best before” dates would impact Canadians.
British retail chains such as Tesco, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Co-Op have eliminated best-before dates on hundreds of items, primarily fruit and vegetables, in an effort to cut down on avoidable food waste. Instead, they use encrypted codes to track how long products have been on the shelf.
What are best before dates in Canada?
Best Before dates indicate quality, not safety. They are how long a manufacturer or retailer believes an unopened product stored under the recommended conditions will maintain its peak freshness, taste and nutrition and other qualities they think are important.
They do not guarantee food safety, either before or after the date. They are a guide to quality, not safety so it is best to think of them more as a guideline than a rule.
You can buy and eat foods that have past the date. The taste or texture may have changed and/or it may start to lose nutritional value (eg. vitamin C).
By law, the date must be displayed be as follows:
Best before/Meilleur avant or “BB/MA”
Year/Month/Day or Month/Day if year is not needed
For example: 25 JN 28 is June, 28, 2025
- JA: January
- FE: February
- MR: March
- AL: April
- MA: May
- JN: June
- JL: July
- AU: August
- SE: September
- OC: October
- NO: November
- DE: December
Canada’s Food and Drugs Regulations (FDR) require pre-packaged products that have a shelf life of 90 days or less (think milk, eggs, bread, etc.) to include either:
- The “Packaged on” date and “durable life” (number of days or best before date) on the package or poster next to the food, or
- The Best Before date and storage instructions (eg. “Keep Refrigerated”)
Exceptions to this rule include prepackaged chopped fruit & vegetables, donuts and food intended for immediate consumption such as vending machine sandwiches.
Best before dates are not required on packaged food with an expected shelf life greater than 90 days (cereals, dry cured meats, etc.), but manufacturers and retailers can optionally include them.
“Prepared on”, “Freeze by” and “Manufactured on” dates are also optional but do not replace the other dating requirements.
What are expiration dates in Canada?
An expiration date is different from a best before date.
Expiration dates are only required on a limited set of 5 categories of special dietary use foods:
- Infant formulas
- Meal replacements
- Nutritional supplements
- Formulated liquid diets (nutritionally complete for oral or tube feeding requiring a prescription)
- Foods for use in a very low-energy diet (require a prescription)
If the expiration date of these products has passed, throw it away as it may no longer have the specific necessary microbiological or nutritional content as stated on the label.
What does durable life mean?
The “durable life” is how long an unopened product, stored properly, should stay at its original peak quality and freshness.
The qualities, and therefore the duration, is determined by the producer or retailer and is the period between the date the product is originally packaged to the date its “wholesomeness, palatability, nutritional value and any other qualities claimed for it by the manufacturer” start to deteriorate according to Food and Drug Regulations B.01.001 (1).
However, there is no regulation that standardizes how the durable life should be determined for any product categories. Manufacturer’s figure it out themselves and how they do it is a bit of a “black box”.
In the US, for example, it’s done in one of two ways according to Expired! Food Waste in America, 2016:
- Have consumers taste test food of various ages and rate it out of 10, and set the date when it drops below a rating of 7, or
- Guess – often setting the date 1-2 years after packaging
This results in products that never expire like sea salt having a best before date:
How to determine if food is spoiled?
Use your senses and trust your instinct to lessen food waste and save money on groceries.
Here are some ways to determine if food should be thrown out:
- What condition is the packaging in? Confirm products are still unopened by checking for airtightness (give it a light squeeze), rips, tears, dents, water damage and bulges.
- How does it look, feel and smell? Use your senses to spot mold, discolouration, bad smells or slimy textures
- Was it stored properly? If yogurt, milk or meat is left out for 2 to 4 hours at a temperature of 4 to 60 degrees C, it is no longer safe to eat.
These may be signs that the food is not safe to eat, even if it’s before the best before date.
If in doubt, throw it out.
Can a retailer sell food past its best before date?
Yes, retailers can legally sell products past their best before dates in Canada. However, the Food and Drugs Act (FDA) 4(1) requires all foods sold in Canada to be safe for consumption.
Best before dates and food waste in Canada
50% of food wasted in Toronto single-family households is avoidable and 63% of the food that Canadians throw away could have been eaten – primarily vegetables, fruit and leftovers. This results in 2.3 million tonnes of edible food being wasted every year according to a 2022 study by the National Zero Waste Council. This is equivalent to 6.9 million tonnes of CO2 and more than 2 million cars on the road.
The economic impact of this food waste is conservatively estimated to be $31 billion annually, but if the cost of resources and energy wasted throughout the food value chain in producing, processing and distributing food that is eventually wasted is included, the cost spirals to more than $100 billion per year.
How to reduce food waste?
Here are some ways to reduce food waste at home:
- Follow storage instructions on packaging
- Store refrigerated foods in covered containers or sealed storage bags
- Put food in the fridge or freezer as soon as you get home
- Use up, cook or freeze foods that are approaching their use-by date first
- Freezer temperature should be 0° F (-18° C), at or below which food stays safe indefinitely
- Store cold foods cold at or below 4°C (40°F) (check your fridge temperature)
- Store hot foods hot at or above 60°C (140°F)
- Freeze food that has reached its best before date. Beef, lamb, pork and chicken can be kept for a year after their best before date in the freezer.
- Clean the refrigerator regularly to reduce the growth of bacteria
- Label containers with contents and dates using painters tape and a marker to track when food must be eaten by
See Love Food Hate Waste’s Food Storage A to Z to learn how to optimally store and use many common food items and this page lists the shelf life when they are kept in the pantry, fridge and freezer.
Storing your food properly in the refrigerator (see fridge storage guide) will help you keep your food fresh for longer.
More: Preventing Wasted Food at Home – EPA
How does food waste impact climate change?
18.3% or 11.2 million tonnes of the food produced in Canada is lost or wasted annually, but was edible and could have been avoided, according to a 2019 Walmart Foundation-funded report by the charitable organization Second Harvest.
This amounts to $49.5 billion worth of food and equated to 3% of Canada’s 2016 GDP. In other words, 3% of Canada’s GDP goes to producing food that could have been eaten, but gets thrown out.
Food and other organic material that is placed in garbage bins instead of organic waste bins ends up in landfills where it piles up and ferments and turns into methane, which traps heat in the atmosphere 80 times more than carbon dioxide.
While US-focused, this video by Climate Town does a great job of breaking down how best before labels can lead to food waste and impact climate change.
Over to you
I’m interest to know – do you check best before dates? How do you determine what food to throw away? Let me know by leaving a comment below!
