Do Products Have to have a Best By Date [ Does the FDA Require Best By Dates ]

Posted by Damian Roberti on May 3, 2022

Do Products Have to have a Best By Date

[ Does the FDA Require Best By Dates ]

Does a product have to have a best buy date? Does the FDA require best buy dates? So in this video, you may want to stick around from the beginning to the end because I've got some really interesting information about how to label the date and best buys on your food products. And you might be a little shocked by what I'm about to tell you.

Do Products Have to have a Best By Date

All right. So, welcome back to the online market for food.It is Damia Roberti and I am here to actually answer a question we got a couple days ago, which was kind of interesting because I hadn't actually done a video on this just yet in the past three or four years that we've been posting our videos. But I had a question from one of our subscribers about whether products have to have a best buy date and do they need an expiration date or is it a best buy date? So I'm going to clarify some of the confusion about what exactly goes on a food product if you're creating a packaged food product. Dami Bede, the founder and CEO of marketing foot online, is the man behind marketing foot online.And as I mentioned before in the video, we're going to go over this specific question and I'm going to answer it.

Do Products Have to have a Best By Date

But before we do that, double check down below our membership program, which is brand new to our channel and has three different tiers, three different levels that you can actually purchase. And every month it actually renews, so you get a lot of perks based on the different levels of membership. If you look down below this video, there's actually a little box that says "join." If you want to click that box, it's going to show you a video and explain all the different tiers, and then you can choose which price point you'd like to join. And then from there, we actually engage and interact with you as a subscriber and a member within those membership tiers. So let's dive right into it. I actually have an email. I'm actually going to read the clip. I printed up a copy of it here. If you go to the FDA website, and I'll have some links down below this video, that will take you specifically to our blog on our website, and you can look for yourself because it's a little bit shocking if you haven't heard of this.

So, in general, the number one manufacturer, and I'll put it up here on the screen.You see it right there? Generally, manufacturers apply date labels at their own discretion and for a variety of reasons. Now the most common method is to inform consumers and retailers of the date up to which they can expect the food to retain its desired quality and flavor. The key exception to this general rule is that it applies only to infant formula products. Now, these products require a use-by date, up to which the manufacturer has confirmed that the product contains no less than the minimum amount of each nutrient identified on the product label and that the product will be of acceptable quality. Now, date labels are generally not required on packaged foods. Let me repeat that again. Date labels are generally not required on packaged foods. So you might be thinking to yourself, "Wow, wait a minute."

Do Products Have to have a Best By Date

So everything I see on my products, whether it's a bag of chips, beef jerky, or anything in a can of soup, has a best by date or best if used by date, which is not an expiration date.The reason being that the FDA looks at the best-by date as simply a quality date to buy, not a product safety date, which means that the product that you're about to eat or consume is going to be safe to eat or consume by that date. It's not something that's issued for safety purposes, but the quality of the product will be guaranteed up until that point based upon what the manufacturer puts on it. Okay, But as I mentioned again, manufacturers generally apply date labels at their own discretion. Secondly, what is this? Sure, How do you know Damian for sure that this is true?

Is this something that's just randomly made up? No, because I have the second portion of it right here directly from the FDA website and a gentleman by the name of Kevin Smith, who is a senior advisor for food safety and the FDA's center for food safety and applied nutrition department, said this quote, the best in if used by the labels you see on packaged foods related to the quality of the product, not the safety, but the quality, and that when you make them or manufacture them, it is at your discretion to put them on there. Okay? But predicting when a food item will no longer be of adequate quality for consumption is not an exact science. So the FDA is basically saying this. In exact science, if you make a bag of potato chips, there is no way to guarantee or measure the actual quality for consumption.

Do Products Have to have a Best By Date

So basically, that means this: if you are producing a food product, legally, the FDA is not requiring a best by date or best used by date. They generally recommend that's different than requiring it. They recommend that you put that on there. So the consumer can make their own judgment based upon whether they want to eat a food product or not. But it is not a safety issue in regards to the safety of the product itself. It's the quality of the product. So that hopefully answers your question. It might just open your eyes a little bit. It might be a bit shocking. And all of the products you buy that have a best buy date are actually put on by the manufacturer at their own judgment call. Basically, What does that mean for you? If you're producing a food product, I would highly recommend that you either have a shelf test done on your food product or

So, you know, the best if used by date, I would recommend that you go ahead and definitely put a best buy date on your package. Why? Because a lot of consumers today are already expecting to see it. And many of them, if they don't see it, might actually think to themselves that the product is either bad or may not be good to eat or whatever their reasoning might be, but understand this, that the FDA actually sends out guidance and guidelines that they expect food manufacturers to follow, of course, with nutritional analysis, nutrition, labor labeling, and transparency on what you put on your label. That's understandable, but a best buy date and an expiration date are not the same thing. The FDA only requires an expiration date for infant and baby formula, which I can kind of understand because you are giving it to a child that's growing and developing and they need to have a certain amount of nutrients.

So having a expiration date is a really good thing, but if you eat a bag of chips and it has a best buy date on it, and you have that product it's opened and you still want to eat it after that timeframe, the quality of the product may be different, but the safety of it is not. So hopefully that answers your question. Thank you guys for a sending that, as I mentioned, this information I just read off of here, I'll have down below a link and you can actually go even deeper and check out the FDA's website. I'll have a link set up on our blog down below this video, but thank you for the gentleman who asked that. So do products have to have a best buy best before date? No, technically you do it at your own judgment call and does the FDA require a best buy date? And I guess not, they what they're saying here on the website. So I will see you guys on our next video.

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