{"id":17297,"date":"2025-09-12T14:38:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T14:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/?p=17297"},"modified":"2025-09-30T14:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:45:09","slug":"expiration-dates-food-accurate-or-misleading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/food-shipping\/expiration-dates-food-accurate-or-misleading\/","title":{"rendered":"Are expiration dates on food accurate or misleading?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Expiration dates are a familiar part of every food package, yet many consumers misunderstand what they truly mean. Confusion between \u201cbest before\u201d and \u201cuse by\u201d labels contributes to millions of tonnes of unnecessary food waste in the UK each year, while also raising concerns about safety, regulation, and consumer trust. Research has shown that the real shelf life of food often differs from what is printed on the label. Packaging quality and reliable temperature control are critical in narrowing this gap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expiration dates are a familiar part of every food package, yet many consumers misunderstand what they truly mean. Confusion between [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-shipping"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17297"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17301,"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17297\/revisions\/17301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hydropac.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}