Expiration date

Arbitrary expiration dates are also commonly applied by companies to product coupons, promotional offers and credit cards.

In these contexts, the expiration date is chosen for business reasons or to provide some security function rather than any product safety concern.

[2] Most U.S. expiration dates are used as guidelines based on normal and expected handling and exposure to temperature.

[4] According to the United States Department of Agriculture, "High-acid canned foods (e.g. tomatoes and fruits) will keep their best quality for 12 to 18 months.

A rare exception is a case of renal tubular acidosis purportedly caused by expired tetracycline.

Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, said that with a handful of exceptions - notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics - most expired drugs are probably effective.

[12] Sometimes the packaging process involves using pre-printed labels, making it impractical to write the best before date in a clearly visible location.

In this case, wording like best before see bottom or best before see lid might be printed on the label and the date marked in a different location as indicated.

[14] Although United States federal law does not require product food dating, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) oversees meat, egg, and poultry products where dates are voluntarily put on in a genuine way to follow the rules of the FSIS.

In most food stores, waste is minimized by using stock rotation, which involves moving products with the earliest sell by date from the warehouse to the sales area, and then to the front of the shelf, so that most shoppers will pick them up first and thus they are likely to be sold before the end of their shelf life.

[19] The UK government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs revised guidance in 2011 to exclude the use of sell-by dates.

The guidance was prepared in consultation with the food industry, consumer groups, regulators, and Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP).

[20] Due to confusion caused by the many types of expiration date labels, as much as 20% of unspoiled food is thrown out by households in developed countries.

In Canada expiration dates must be used on the following food items (list and comments copied from CFIA website): The concern is that after the expiration date has passed, the food may not have the same nutrient content as specified on the packaging and for the listed regulated products, the nutritional content is quite important.

The CFIA recommends that food should be discarded and should not be bought, sold or eaten beyond the stated expiration date.

This contrasts with a best before date which is an indication of how long properly stored prepackaged food is expected to retain its "freshness, taste, nutritional value, or any other qualities claimed by the manufacturer".

For example, in Canada, all children are required to be secured in an infant car seat while in a motor vehicle that is in motion.

The rationale is that car seats are subjected to heat, cold, sun exposure, abuse by the children, and long term storage between children, all of which can degrade the structure and function of the car seat and fail in a crash.

[28][29] Medicine and other types of Medication are mandatory by Health Canada to have expiry dates, plus it's also required by pharmacies.

[32] In Germany, practices differentiate between the "Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum" (MHD), roughly minimum shelf-life and "Verbrauchsdatum", which is more in line with the common expiry date.

Neither the MHD nor the Verbrauchsdatum provide legal rights if a product is no longer fit for consumption before the indicated date and the manufacturer can prove the credibility of his claims.

[35] Great Britain first introduced legislation in 1980 when the Food Labelling Regulations harmonized UK law with the 1979 EC Labelling Directive (79/112/EC), which required a 'date of minimum durability' – the 'best-before' date – but allowed member states to use their own terms, thus allowing the UK to use the sell-by date.

Shelf life trials should be conducted using the same ingredients, equipment, procedures and manufacturing environment as will be used during production.

This information is entirely at the discretion of the manufacturer.After losing a lawsuit, pharmacy chain CVS implemented a system that causes its registers to recognize expired products and avert their sale.

Although beer is not legally mandated in the United States to have a shelf life, freshness dates serve much the same purpose and are used as a marketing tool.

General Brewing Company of San Francisco marketed their Lucky Lager Beer as "Age Dated" as early as late 1935.

The Boston Beer Company, maker of Samuel Adams, was among the first contemporary brewers to start adding freshness dates to their product line in 1985.