How to Set a Use-By or Best-Before Date on Your Product

To set a date mark, first decide which type applies: use a use-by date when food becomes unsafe to eat after a certain point, and a best-before date when it stays safe but loses quality. Then determine the shelf life through testing and evidence, not guesswork, and print the date clearly with storage conditions. Under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, date marking is a supplier responsibility you must be able to justify. Key takeaways: Use a use-by date for food that becomes unsafe after a point, and a best-before date for food that stays safe but declines in quality.. The date you print is a claim you must be able to justify with evidence — shelf-life testing, storage trials or documented reasoning, not a guess.. Date marking is tied to storage conditions: a date is only valid when the food is kept the way the label says, so state the conditions.. Food past its use-by date must not be sold; food past its best-before date can still be sold if it is safe and not damaged or deteriorated.. Requirements sit under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, and how they are enforced can vary by state and territory.. Use-by versus best-before: which one applies The choice between the two date types is a safety decision, not a marketing one. A use-by date is used for food that will become unsafe to eat after a certain time, even when stored correctly — typically because pathogens can grow to dangerous levels or the food degrades in a way that poses a health risk. Ready-to-eat chilled foods, many dairy products, and pre-prepared meals commonly carry a use-by date. Once that date passes, the food must not be sold and should not be eaten. A best-before date is used for food that stays safe well beyond the date but gradually loses quality — flavour, texture, colour or nutritional value. Biscuits, canned goods, frozen items and many pantry staples fall here. Food can legally be sold after its best-before date provided it is still safe and has not become damaged, deteriorated or perished. If you are genuinely unsure which applies, treat safety as the deciding factor. Ask whether eating the food after the date could make someone sick. If the honest answer is yes, it needs a use-by date. If the only consequence is a stale biscuit or a faded colour, best-before is appropriate. What the Food Standards Code requires you to show Date marking sits within the labelling requirements of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. In general, packaged food with a shelf life of two years or less must carry a date mark, shown as either a use-by or best-before date. Very short-life foods and certain items have their own conventions, so check how the Code applies to your specific product type. The date must appear together with any storage conditions needed for the food to keep until that date. A use-by or best-before date is meaningless in isolation — 'best before 12 2027' only holds if the consumer stores the product as intended. If your shelf life assumes refrigeration at or below 5°C, the label has to say so, because the date and the storage condition are a single claim. Crucially, the Code makes date marking the supplier's responsibility, and it expects the date to be accurate. You are the one asserting the food is safe or of acceptable quality up to that date, so you need to be able to stand behind it if a regulator or auditor asks how you arrived at it. How to determine the shelf life behind the date The date is the visible end of an invisible process: shelf-life determination. This is where you work out how long the food actually stays safe (for a use-by date) or acceptable in quality (for a best-before date) under realistic storage. Printing a number without this work behind it is the single biggest mistake businesses make. For lower-risk products, shelf life can often be justified through documented reasoning: comparison with well-established similar products, published guidance, ingredient and formulation knowledge, and supplier data. For higher-risk foods — particularly ready-to-eat items where pathogen growth is the concern — you generally need more rigorous evidence, such as laboratory shelf-life testing, microbiological analysis, or a challenge test that models how organisms behave in your product over time. Whatever route you take, keep the reasoning on file. Note the assumed storage conditions, the tests or references you relied on, and the safety margin you built in. That documentation is both your justification and your starting point if you ever reformulate the product and need to reassess the date. Storage conditions and the danger zone A shelf-life date is only as reliable as the temperature control it assumes. Most food-safety risk in chilled products comes down to time in the temperature danger zone of 5–60°C, where bacteria multiply fastest. If your product needs refrigeration, your shelf life must be based on it being held at 5°C or below throughout, and the label must instruct the consumer accordingly. Be realistic about the conditions your food will actually meet, not the ideal ones in your test fridge. Domestic refrigerators run warmer and more variably than commercial ones, and product spends time in transit and on shelves. A sensible safety margin absorbs this real-world variability rather than assuming perfect handling from your door to the consumer's plate. For frozen foods, the date reflects quality retention during proper frozen storage rather than a safety cut-off, but the same principle applies: the date is valid only if the stated storage temperature is maintained. Make the storage instruction specific and unambiguous so the date you worked so hard to justify is not undone by vague labelling. Printing the date so it is legible and lawful A correctly determined date still fails if the consumer cannot read or interpret it. Use the standard formats the Code recognises: a use-by date is shown with the words 'use by' followed by the date, and a best-before date with 'best before' followed by the date. Order the day, month and year clearly, and spell out or abbreviate the month where a numbers-only date could be misread. Place the date where people will find it and make sure it is legible against its background and durable enough to survive handling, chilling and moisture. A date that smudges off the film or hides under a fold is effectively no date at all, and an illegible date mark is a labelling defect in its own right. Date marking also connects to the rest of your label. Allergen declarations under Plain English Allergen Labelling (PEAL) within Standard 1.2.3, storage instructions, and the product name all have to be present and correct. Treat the date as one element of a complete, compliant label rather than an afterthought stamped on at the end of the line. Selling food near or past the date The two date types behave very differently once the date arrives. Food that has passed its use-by date must not be sold, full stop — it is treated as unsafe by definition, regardless of how it looks or smells. Rotate stock so use-by products are sold or removed well before the date, and build a routine for checking and pulling short-dated lines. Food past its best-before date can still be sold legally, provided it remains safe and has not become damaged, deteriorated or perished. Many businesses choose to discount or donate best-before stock rather than discard it, which is entirely permissible when the food is still fit to eat. What you cannot do is sell food that is spoiled, whatever its date says. Never extend a date once it is set. Re-labelling to push a date out, or over-stickering an original date, undermines the evidence base behind it and misleads consumers. If circumstances change — a new recipe, a different pack, a cold-chain failure — reassess the shelf life properly and set a fresh, justified date rather than moving the old one. Checklist: The date type (use-by or best-before) has been chosen on a safety basis. Shelf life has been determined with testing or documented reasoning appropriate to the risk. The storage conditions the date depends on are defined and stated on the label. A safety margin has been built in for real-world storage and handling. The justification and any test results are kept on file. The date is printed in the correct format, legible and durable. Stock rotation removes use-by products before the date passes. Common mistakes: Choosing best-before for a product that can actually become unsafe, when it needs a use-by date. Printing a date with no shelf-life testing or documented reasoning behind it. Setting a date without stating the storage conditions the date depends on. Assuming ideal storage instead of building a margin for warmer, variable domestic fridges and transit. Selling food past its use-by date, which is prohibited regardless of appearance. Extending or over-stickering a date after it has been set instead of reassessing shelf life properly.