Sell by date rules

[nikki-red]

I bought 2 packets of frozen crab sticks from a well known frozen food store(am I allowed to name it?) yesterday. They had a paper sticker on them with defrosting instructions etc, and a use by date of End October 2010.

I went to open them and found they were all watery and kind of squishy and on closer inspection realised the sticker had been placed over a sell by date printed on the packet of 13/02/2010!!! Surely this is not allowed!!

(I dont care enough to go back and complain, just wondered if anyone knows the rules!)

Thanks.

[fox20thc]

They shouldn't be re labelling food with a later date. However sell by date is no indicator of when it should be used.

 

There is the sell by date (for the seller)

and sometimes a use by date - usually applied to protect the seller from prosecution for 'off' food.

 

I take no notice of them, use my nose and my eyes to decide. I buy lots of food which has been reduced to silly money because the sell by date is that day then just take it home and freeze it.

 

Never had any problems. Regarding crab sticks, well they are not really crab are they, take a look at the ingredients I'm sure water features highly on the list of contents

[heavydog]

I bought 2 packets of frozen crab sticks from a well known frozen food store(am I allowed to name it?) yesterday. They had a paper sticker on them with defrosting instructions etc, and a use by date of End October 2010.

I went to open them and found they were all watery and kind of squishy and on closer inspection realised the sticker had been placed over a sell by date printed on the packet of 13/02/2010!!! Surely this is not allowed!!

(I dont care enough to go back and complain, just wondered if anyone knows the rules!)

Thanks.

 

sell by-- useby-- and eat by all have different meanings. not lnowing how long from taking out of the freezer to opening the only thing I would worry about is has this stuff thawed and been refrozen or is the shop freezer not working properly?

[HeadingNorth]

I'd be very surprised if that didn't qualify as a fraud, and I'd be tempted to call Trading Standards and ask them about it - if not for the sake of the one-pound-eleven-and-six I spent on crab sticks, for fear of someone else ending up seriously ill, or dead, as a result of such practices.

 

That said, of course, most sell-by dates have a huge safety margin built in.

[weenireeni]

Maybe the original product had been fresh, then frozen, to explain the change of dates?!

[mediman]

I'd be very surprised if that didn't qualify as a fraud, and I'd be tempted to call Trading Standards and ask them about it - if not for the sake of the one-pound-eleven-and-six I spent on crab sticks, for fear of someone else ending up seriously ill, or dead, as a result of such practices.

 

That said, of course, most sell-by dates have a huge safety margin built in.

 

 

[Many shops relable a fresh food item that are near their sell by date, with new sell by dates if the said item is frozen before the original sell by date has been reached. These items are usually safe to eat for a futher 6 month from the original sell by date. M.A.S. Foods at Orgreave is a prime example. Their labels state frozen within sell by date and are then given a new sell by date when frozen

[alex3659]

There is a massive black market with fraudsters relabelling out of date food and putting it back out on the market.

[cgksheff]

I'd be very surprised if that didn't qualify as a fraud, and I'd be tempted to call Trading Standards and ask them about it - if not for the sake of the one-pound-eleven-and-six I spent on crab sticks, for fear of someone else ending up seriously ill, or dead, as a result of such practices.

 

That said, of course, most sell-by dates have a huge safety margin built in.

 

 

The only date-labelling of foods that has any legal significance is the "Use-by" date.

 

All the rest ("Sell-by", "Display-until", "Best before") are only guidelines and it is not illegal to sell items after these dates.

 

 

Regardless of any date labels, if the food is not fit for consumption, you should take it back for a refund every time.