By the WahLiao desk · Last verified 28 September 2026

“Use by” is about safety. “Best before” is about quality. That is the rule almost everywhere in the world, and it is still the right way to think about food in your own kitchen: do not eat chilled, perishable food after its use-by date, while dry, tinned or frozen food past its best-before date is often still fine if it has been stored properly and looks, smells and tastes normal.

Singapore adds a twist that surprises almost everyone. Under the current Food Regulations, both dates count as the expiry date for selling. Once either date has passed, a shop here may not sell the food at all. That is why the supermarket clears a packet of biscuits the morning after its best-before date, even though you might happily finish the same biscuits at home next week.

Supermarket food dates: quick facts

Use by	A safety date. Do not eat the food after it.
Best before	A quality date. The food may be past its peak, not necessarily unsafe.
Selling rule in Singapore	Neither may be sold after its date under the current Food Regulations
Which foods must be dated	A list of specified prepacked foods, including chilled foods, cultured milk drinks and pasteurised juices
What may change	The Singapore Food Agency has been studying whether only safety-related date marks should count as “outdated” under the new Food Safety and Security Act
Health labels	Nutri-Grade A to D on drinks now; on salt, sauces, seasonings, instant noodles and cooking oil from mid-2027

The WahLiao Verdict

Cost	Confusion is the expensive part. Every tin binned a week after its best-before date is money that went out with perfectly good food.
What you get	A two-rule system for your fridge and pantry, and the reason the supermarket clears its shelves when it does.
The alternative	Throwing everything out on the printed date, which is safe and wasteful; or ignoring dates, which is cheap and occasionally dangerous.
Worth it for	Anyone who runs a household, and anyone who buys marked-down, near-date food.
Skip it if	You already know the difference and your fridge has never produced a mystery container.
Last verified	28 September 2026, against the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, the Ministry of Health and the Health Promotion Board.

What does “use by” mean?

A use-by date is the maker’s estimate of how long a perishable food stays safe, provided the pack is unopened and kept the way the label says. You find it on the foods that spoil quietly: chilled meat and fish, milk and yoghurt, fresh pasta, ready meals, cut fruit and deli meats. You also find it on infant formula, where there is no room for judgement at all.

Past a use-by date, food can carry bacteria that neither your nose nor your eyes will notice. So the rule is simple. Eat it by the date, or freeze it on or before the date if the pack says it can be frozen, and use it promptly once thawed. After the date, it goes.

What does “best before” mean?

A best-before date is a promise about quality: the crunch of the cracker, the colour of the tea, the fizz in the drink. It lives on the patient foods, such as rice, pasta, biscuits, tins, sauces, cereal, frozen food and bottled drinks. Past that date the food may be staler, paler or flatter. It is not, by that fact alone, unsafe.

At home, a best-before item that has stayed unopened, been stored as directed and shows no damage is usually still fine to eat, provided it looks, smells and tastes as it should. Throw out anything in a bulging, badly dented or rusted tin, any pack that has been damaged, and anything whose smell or texture has changed. When in doubt, throw it out. Infant formula follows its date without exception.

Why can’t Singapore supermarkets sell food past its best-before date?

Because the law does not yet tell the two apart. Answering a parliamentary question in February 2024, the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment explained that under the current Food Regulations both “use by” and “best before” indicate the expiry date, after which the food may not be sold in Singapore because its quality may have deteriorated.

Why not simply standardise the labels, as some countries have? Because Singapore imports most of its food and its market is small. The ministry noted that asking manufacturers to print Singapore-only date marks would add packaging costs that could be passed on to shoppers, and that some overseas makers might stop sending their products here altogether. For an island that feeds itself through many import sources, a narrower supply is a real cost, and it would arrive quietly, as a shorter shelf.

This may change. When Parliament debated the Food Safety and Security Bill in January 2025, the minister said that what counts as “outdated” food would be set out in subsidiary legislation, and that the Singapore Food Agency was studying whether to distinguish date marks by their relevance to food safety, so that only marks showing a food may have become unsafe would count. Until those rules are made and in force, treat both dates as the shop’s deadline. We will update this page when that changes.

Which foods must carry a date in Singapore?

Not all of them. The Food Regulations require every prepacked food to carry basic information in English: the name of the food, its ingredients, the net quantity, the name and address of the manufacturer or importer, and the country of origin. A date mark is required for a list of specified foods, which includes food that must be kept chilled to last (raw fruit and vegetables excepted), cultured milk and cultured milk drinks, and pasteurised fruit juices, among others.

Many other products carry a date because the manufacturer chose to print one, often because it is required in the country where the food was made. That is why a bag of salt, which will outlive most of us, may still carry a best-before date.

How to read the dates on imported food

Singapore’s shelves come from everywhere, so the dates do too, and they are not all written the same way round.

• Day, month, year is usual on products from Europe, Australia and much of Asia: 05/11/26 is 5 November 2026.
• Month, day, year is the American habit: the same 05/11/26 on a product from the United States is 11 May 2026. Check the country of origin before you trust the numbers.
• Year, month, day is common on Japanese and some Korean products: 26.11.05 is 5 November 2026.
• A production date plus a shelf life appears on some imports, which show when the food was made and how many months it keeps. Look for the importer’s English label or sticker, which gives the date directly.
• Month and year only is used on long-life food and means the end of that month.

Other dates and words on the pack

• “Expiry date” or “Exp”: the date after which the product may not be sold. On a perishable food, treat it as a use-by date.
• “Packed on” or “Manufactured on”: the start of the clock, not the end. Common on fresh meat and bakery items packed in store.
• “Consume within three days of opening”: once the pack is open, this instruction replaces the printed date, which assumed a sealed pack.
• “Sell by” or “Display until”: instructions for the shop, not for you.

The near-date markdown: bargain or trap?

Because a Singapore supermarket must take food off sale on its date, it has every reason to sell it the day before. That is where the reduced sticker comes from. Near-date food is not worse food. It is food with a shorter runway.

So the test is not the size of the discount. It is whether you will eat it in time. Marked-down chicken for tonight’s dinner is a good buy. Marked-down chicken bought for a week that already holds three dinners out is an expensive way of buying something to throw away. If you are unsure, freeze a use-by item on the day you buy it, as long as the label allows.

Nutri-Grade: the other label on the shelf

The date tells you when. Nutri-Grade tells you how much. Since the end of 2022, prepacked drinks in Singapore have carried a grade from A to D based on their sugar and saturated fat, with A the healthiest, and the scheme was later extended to freshly prepared drinks. Drinks graded D may not be advertised.

It appears to have worked. The Ministry of Health reported that the median sugar level of prepacked Nutri-Grade drinks fell from 7.1% in 2017 to 4.6% by September 2023, largely because manufacturers quietly reformulated, and that grade A and B drinks rose from 37% to 69% of purchases.

From mid-2027 the grades extend to the main sources of salt and saturated fat in Singapore diets: prepacked salt, sauces, seasonings, instant noodles and cooking oil, across 23 sub-categories sold in retail. Each sub-category has its own thresholds, so a grade-A soy sauce is good for a soy sauce, not good in the way water is good. Products will be graded on sodium or saturated fat first, and on secondary nutrients such as sugar where they matter. The Health Promotion Board’s Nutri-Grade page carries the details.

Frequently asked questions

Can I eat food after its best-before date?

Usually, if the pack is unopened and undamaged, it has been stored as directed, and it looks, smells and tastes normal. Quality may have faded. Never apply this to use-by foods or to infant formula.

Is the expiry date the same as the use-by date?

For selling in Singapore, both use-by and best-before dates currently work as the expiry date. At home, treat an expiry date on a perishable food exactly as you would a use-by date.

Can supermarkets in Singapore sell food past its date?

No. Under the current Food Regulations, food may not be sold after either a use-by or a best-before date. That may be refined when the date-marking rules under the Food Safety and Security Act are finalised.

Can I freeze food on its use-by date?

If the label says the food can be frozen, you can freeze it up to its use-by date. Once thawed, keep it chilled and eat it promptly; do not refreeze it.

When will Nutri-Grade labels appear on sauces and instant noodles?

From mid-2027, covering prepacked salt, sauces, seasonings, instant noodles and cooking oil sold in retail settings, including supermarkets and online stores.

Read next

This page belongs to How Supermarket Works, our series on the grocery network behind the shelf, where we explain why a chilled product is really food plus a temperature history. Continue with how to save money on groceries in Singapore and every supermarket chain in Singapore, explained.

Sources checked 28 September 2026: MSE oral reply on date labels (7 February 2024); MSE closing speech on the Food Safety and Security Bill (January 2025); MOH on Nutri-Grade for sodium and saturated fat; HPB Nutri-Grade; published summaries of the Food Regulations’ labelling requirements. This page explains; it is not food-safety advice for a specific product. Last updated 28 September 2026.