What's the Difference Between Best Before Date and Expiry Date?
The difference between best before date and expiry date is what each one measures. A best before date speaks to freshness and quality. An expiry date speaks to safety. In Canada, only a small group of specialty products are legally required to carry an expiry date at all, which is why you will rarely see one.
Most of us treat the two labels as the same warning. Milk goes a day past the printed date and it goes in the garbage. Knowing the difference between best before date and expiry date saves money and guesswork, particularly if you work anywhere near a kitchen.
The difference between best before date and expiry date comes down to safety
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) defines a best before date using the term durable life: the period during which a product, stored properly, keeps its normal wholesomeness, palatability and nutritional value. Notice what is missing. Safety.
CFIA is blunt about it. A durable life date is not an indicator of food safety, before or after the date. Crackers a week past their best before date are not dangerous, just less crisp. Chicken left out all afternoon is unsafe long before any printed date arrives.
Two details get missed. A best before date applies to unopened packaging only - break the seal and the number stops being reliable. It also assumes the product was stored properly throughout, a far bigger assumption than most people realize.
Why most Canadian food never carries an expiry date
An expiry date is a genuine safety cut-off. Past it, a product may no longer deliver the nutrition it claims, and it should not be sold or eaten.
In Canada that label is legally reserved for six categories:
- formulated liquid diets
- very low-energy diet foods
- meal replacements
- nutritional supplements
- infant formula
- human milk fortifiers
Someone may rely on these as a sole or primary source of nutrition, so the stakes are different. Everything else in the fridge - yogurt, deli meat, bagged salad - carries a best before date, whatever the package suggests.
The other dates printed on food
Packaging carries a lot of numbers and only some are regulated. Foods with a durable life of 90 days or less must be dated, either with a best before date or a packaged on date paired with durable life information.
Beyond that you will see wordings such as sell by, prepared on, freeze by and manufactured on. These are stock rotation and production markers aimed at retailers, not safety instructions aimed at consumers. Use by is worth watching since it appears on highly perishable items, but it is not a regulated expiry date.
What changes when you are handling food for other people
At home, a best before date is a personal judgment call. In a commercial kitchen it is one input into a system.
Date labels only hold up if storage has been right throughout - correct temperatures, sealed containers, stock rotated so older product moves first. A perfect best before date on a package that spent two hours on a loading dock in July tells you very little. It is why food still within its date can make someone ill, and why food past its date frequently will not.
Reading that context is a trained skill, not common sense. For more on what happens to food after the printed date, see our guide to the hidden health risks of eating expired food.
Userve delivers a Food Handler Certification Course that is 100% online and covers safe storage, stock rotation and date labelling. You can start the program for free whenever it suits you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you eat food after the best before date?
Often, yes. A best before date measures quality rather than safety, so food past that date may have lost texture, flavour or nutritional value without being unsafe. Judge it on storage conditions, smell and appearance, not the number alone.
Is a best before date the same as an expiry date?
No. That is the core difference between best before date and expiry date: best before is about freshness, expiry is about safety. Only six categories of specialty food in Canada must carry an expiry date.
Does a best before date still apply once the package is opened?
No. Best before dates apply to unopened products stored under appropriate conditions. Once the seal is broken the shelf life changes and the printed date is no longer dependable.
Are sell by and use by dates regulated in Canada?
Not as safety dates. Wordings such as sell by, prepared on and freeze by are stock and production markers, not regulated expiry dates. Treat them as guidance rather than a safety cut-off.
