How long does food stay good?

I volunteer at the AIO food pantry in Rockland Maine. We, and other food-distribution programs, accept donations from supermarkets and food distribution companies, not to mention many generous people.

Packaged groceries — cans, bottles, bags — have a code date on them. This often says something like “Sell by 9/2027” or “Best if used by 15-May-2026” or some such phrase. This code date is used by the supermarket industry. It means that the product maintains perfect appearance until that date. It does not mean the product is unfit for consumption after that date. (Exceptions: baby formula and pharmaceutical products. Those should be used by the code date.)

Most food is still perfectly usable for a long time after the code date. Supermarkets pull products from their shelves when the code date passes, and donate that food to AIO or other food pantries. It’s good they donate it, otherwise it would all go to the dump and be wasted.

At AIO, we volunteers inspect the donated food. The basic rule is “don’t put it out in the market if you wouldn’t take it home yourself.” For fresh fruit, veggies, and bread that’s obvious: it’s changing color or getting soft or growing mold or some such sign of spoilage.

For packaged groceries, we go by a table of product lifetimes past the code date. Some of this food lasts a long time after the code date. Long enough to leave on the shelf over the winter up at camp. Certainly long enough to be nutritious and delicious on some family’s table.

This is the table we use of lifetimes after the code date. (Press ctrl-F and search the table.)