Use by vs best before: what the dates on your food actually mean

The short answer: use by is about safety. Don’t eat food after its use-by date, even if it looks and smells fine. Best before is about quality. After that date, food is usually still safe to eat, but it may not taste or feel as good. Check it with your eyes, nose and tongue.

That’s the whole rule. The rest of this page covers the details that trip people up: which foods carry which date, what you can still do with food on its use-by day, and why eggs are the odd one out.

“Use by”: the safety date

A use-by date goes on food that spoils quickly and could make you ill once it has: fresh meat, fish, ready-to-eat salads and some dairy products.

The European Food Safety Authority is blunt about it. These foods “should not be eaten after that specific date, even if they look or smell fine.” The bacteria that cause food poisoning usually don’t change how food looks or smells, so the sniff test doesn’t work here.

What you can still do on the day

A use-by date isn’t a countdown to the bin. It’s a deadline to decide. Up to and including that date, you have two ways to buy more time:

• Cook it. Once it’s cooked, keep it in the fridge and eat it within 48 hours, or freeze it.
• Freeze it. The UK Food Standards Agency says you can eat food after its use-by date if it was frozen on or before that date. Keep it at −18 °C, and once it’s defrosted, eat it within 24 hours.

Write the date on anything you freeze. EFSA recommends it, and you’ll thank yourself in two months, when the bag of something beige at the back of the freezer has no other clues.

“Best before”: the quality date

Best-before dates go on food that lasts: pasta, rice, tins, frozen food, snacks. The date is the manufacturer’s promise about quality. Up to then, stored as the label says, the food will be at its best.

After the date, it may lose “some of its taste, texture, or freshness” (EFSA), but it is usually still safe. The FSA’s advice is to use your senses: look at it, smell it, taste a little. Stale crisps are a disappointment, not a danger.

Two conditions apply: the food must have been stored the way the label says, and the packaging must be intact. A swollen, rusted or dented tin is a different conversation.

The one everybody gets wrong: eggs

In the EU, eggs carry a best-before date, not a use-by date. By law it is no more than 28 days after the egg was laid (EUFIC).

So an egg a few days past its date is often still safe to eat. But EUFIC adds a caveat worth keeping: the longer an egg is kept, the higher the risk for dishes where it stays raw or runny. Once the date has passed, use eggs only in thoroughly cooked dishes: a frittata, not a soft-boiled egg or homemade mayonnaise.

Two more egg facts from the same source:

• Keep them in the fridge and avoid temperature swings.
• Don’t wash them before storing. Washing strips the protective layer on the shell.

The float test (old eggs float in water) gives you a hint about age, but EUFIC is clear that it is not a reliable check of safety or quality.

“Once opened” beats the printed date

The date on the pack assumes the pack is closed. Once you open it, look for the storage line: “once opened, keep refrigerated and eat within 3 days” is common on things like ham, hummus and cream. That instruction replaces the printed date. If the pack says three days and you opened it on Monday, Thursday is your limit, whatever the lid says.

And the fridge matters: the FSA and EFSA both say 5 °C or below. A fridge thermometer costs a few euros and settles every argument about whether the door shelf counts.

A quick reference

Date on the pack	What it’s about	After the date	Typical foods
Use by	Safety	Don’t eat it, even if it seems fine	Fresh meat, fish, ready-to-eat salads, some dairy
Best before	Quality	Usually safe: look, smell, taste	Pasta, rice, tins, frozen food, snacks
Best before (eggs)	Quality	Only in thoroughly cooked dishes	Eggs, at most 28 days after laying
Once opened, eat within…	Safety, after opening	Follow it over the printed date	Ham, dips, cream, sauces

Why the difference is worth knowing

A 2018 European Commission study estimated that up to 10% of the 88 million tonnes of food waste produced in the EU each year is linked to date labels (via EFSA). A lot of that is best-before food: perfectly good, but thrown out because the date looked like a deadline.

The fix is rarely more discipline. It’s seeing the dates in time: noticing the chicken is use-by tomorrow while there’s still time to cook or freeze it, and knowing the pasta from last spring is fine.

Where Nudgey fits

This is the problem Nudgey was built for. You photograph your receipt, Nudgey fills in what you bought, and it keeps your fridge, freezer and pantry sorted by what needs using first. Before something is due, it sends you a nudge, at most one a day. It also shows you recipes that use what you already have.

Nudgey tracks the date you give it, or a sensible default when you don’t. It isn’t a food-safety authority. The label on the pack always wins.

Nudgey is coming soon to iPhone, with Android following. It starts with a 7-day free trial, then it’s a subscription. Your inventory stays on your phone.

Sources: EFSA — Food date labelling · GOV.UK / FSA — Best before and use-by dates · EUFIC — Is it safe to eat eggs after the expiration date?