Best before dates

[GMH]

When were best before dates introduced on food in the United Kingdom? Sometimes people say that something is so old that it doesn't even have a best before date on it, so could it have been to let people know when a certaion food was no longer suitable to eat in sometime for example in the 1970s?

[flaming]

I think it was the late 60s or early 70s but I can't be specific about the year.  At first they were labels stuck on to things like yoghurts and other fresh food,  and one would find the labels peeled off by small shopkeepers who didn't want to have unsold items.  Things tightened up in the 80s and by the 90s I think 'best before' dates were printed by the manufacturers on everything comestible.  Before that it really was a lottery.  Tins degrade fairly quickly, but glass jars and bottles look the same.  However, there are invariably very long ahead 'best before' dates on tinned and bottled items - maybe one or two years.  Dry foods like biscuits and chocolate cannot be kept beyond a date which renders them unsafe and nasty tasting.  Although things were made more difficult for the food manufacturers in one way, it saved them a lot of money in other ways - the sending oout of vouchers or replacements when people complained, as well as perhaps lawsuits which were not publicised, if people were made ill by eating stuff which was too old. 

[willowman]

When I was an account manager selling food wraps I visited a cheese company who used our product for wrapping cheese. Discussing BBF dates the manager there said they had to put one on the cheese at the insistance of the supermarkets, but the dates were often random. He said "look at it, smell it, and try a small bit, if it seems ok then eat it. "

That's what we did in my youth and it was ok then. We survived by using common sense - something which seems to be lacking in the days of the nanny state

[hal]

willowman - all very well to smell and taste in advance if you can, but when food is pre-packaged you can't do this. Sell by dates are therefore a usefulish indicator of how fresh the food might be.

[hal]

As for the old days, I still remember a box of chocolates my gran opened (in about 1961) which was full of weevils. It had been sitting on a shelf in the newsagents for heaven knows how long - no sell by date then!