Sell by dates are past their sell by date.

[Gromit]

Sell by dates are to be abolished.

It is hoped this will help cut the amount of food wasted every year.

I have never taken much notice of them, preferring to believe my nose. Do you take any notice of them? Does this pose any health problems?

http://www.dailymail....tons-food-binned.html

[BrainsTracy]

Good news mostly but I do fear a generation of people in shops bars etc will flounder. Let me explain, when I was a student I worked in a pub and we had no dates on anything,simple economics meant that when we sold anything it had to be the oldest one in the building. So we always bottled up from the back and any siliveries went behind what we already had. These days I dispair at people filling shelves putting new stock in front of old etc. Only the date prevents us from getting a 10 year old bottle of light ale!

[Craftypig]

I never take notice of them, I will even eat bread that is starting to mold, much to the annoyance of my other half. It's always been a bone of contention between me and the other half. I hate to see food being thrown away because its a few days past its sell by date.

[kinell]

are you suggesting that it is not the case that at the stroke of midnight a yoghurt say will not turn into a deadly killer?

stupid people please take note....

[Gromit]

I wonder what impact this will have on supermarkets and profits.

Presumably, they will not have to sell stuff off cheap that is nearing sell by date, or indeed throw stuff away and pay for it to be dumped.

On the other hand, if people take longer to eat things, then they will be buying less.

It will be interesting to see if the supermarkets make more money or less by removing dates.

[Carakeel]

I used to work as a food broker and remember a manufacturer/distributor telling me that the sell by dates are total nonsense and the use by dates are usually put on far earlier than they need to be. By putting these as early as possible the companies have to order more. So, while being very careful about meat and dairy products, I don't take much notice of these dates and go more by my sense of smell and knowledge and look of the produce.

[EvianBaby]

I use them as a guide for things like milk but I always have a little sniff/look and if it seems ok I'll still eat/drink it. I'm not dead yet.

[mumsie_wumsie]

Common sense tells you when food is still OK to eat. We don't need dates to tell us when to use food by, we have eyes and noses to tell us. This will hopefully stop a lot of food wastage. Food doesn't 'suddenly' go 'off' just because the date on the product says the time is up !!!

[gingejbee]

There will still be "best before" or "use by" dates on them, so no difference as far as the consumer is concerned. And I do wish people would find out the difference between the two!

[dave50]

There realy are some stupid people out there if they think that because food has best before date that it will suddenly go off on the stroke of midnight!

[gingejbee]

No Dave, the stuff that goes off at midnight has "use by" on it. See above!

[anotheoldgit]

/// I wonder what impact this will have on supermarkets and
profits.///

Never mind the supermarkets, they will not lose out, no matter what.

But this can only be good news for the small shopkeeper, they will not have to throw away the small profit they make now.

[jno]

my nose doesn't work very well, so I value some warnings. But the Sell By date wasn't really one of them. Use By is.

[emmie]

never took much notice, however i did have a yogurt that literally exploded the other day. Rather odd seeing it wasn't out of its eat by date, i ended up covered in splots of yogurt, perhaps i can give the bill to the supermarket. x

[rov1100]

I often smell the milk before its has turned rancid and it always has a funny pong. I believe they put preservatives in the milk to make it last longer as the shelf life is up to a week. Milk never lasted that long!

[steg]

sell by dates?....... what are they?