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It’s essential to store your food correctly, to prevent food waste, and thus ensure you can eat all the food you buy. This document aims to be a general guide on food storage and spoilage, but as always, it’s important to read the labels and packaging for anything you buy.

Packaging Information

Before you can store anything, you need to understand what it is you’ve bought. Obviously, you should follow your grocery store’s example if you want to keep foods how you bought them, but occasionally, it makes more sense to change things up.

Regardless, you should always check the packaging, assuming you aren’t only picking up loose, fresh produce.

Dates

In most countries, all packaged foods must include a date, after which you should consider throwing the food out instead of eating it. There are multiple types of dates, so it’s critical to understand the difference — though do note that the dates you’ll see will vary from region to region.

• Use By — the meaning of this date changes based on where you are.
  • In regions without a “do not use after” or “expires on” date, this represents the last day you can safely eat something. Unless you froze a fresh item before this date, you should eat it before the end of the day given on the date.
  • In regions with a separate “do not use after” or “expires on” date (such as the USA), this may be a measure of quality. The manufacturer is telling you that, while foods may be safe to eat after this date, the quality will be worse and the food may be less appealing.
• Best Before — This is a measure of quality. The manufacturer is letting you know that, while foods may be safe to eat after this date, the quality will be worse and the food may be less appealing.
• Sell By — This is an instruction for the store, rather than for you. In the US, research has shown that foods reaching their “sell by” date can have up to one third of their shelf life remaining.
• Freeze By — This is like “best before”, but for freezing. It’s the date you should freeze the food by to keep it at its highest quality.
• Expires On/Do Not Use After — the meaning of this date changes based on where you are.
  • In some regions, this may be used for things like baking powder, to let you know that it won’t be as effective after the given date. You may want to consider replacing it if you need it for something.
  • In other regions, this represents the last day you can safely eat something. Unless you froze a fresh item before this date, you should eat it before the end of the day given on the date.

Research in some western countries suggests that some companies may be printing misleading dates on their products, suggesting they need to be thrown out sooner than is necessary. This kind of behaviour is profit-driven, with the goal of encouraging consumers to throw food out and buy more of it when they don’t really need to. This can also just be a legal liability thing, with companies providing conservative expiry dates because they’re afraid someone will sue them if they get sick.

Because of this, it’s important to understand which foods you should never take risks with, and how to tell whether something has spoiled.

Spoilage

For many foods, it’s typically pretty obvious when they’ve spoiled, but this isn’t the case for everything. Some foods have specific tells, and some foods are packaged in a way that makes it difficult to check their contents. However, in general, you should trust your senses.

Inspect foods before you use them, and look for the following: