Expired Food & Drink
Recyclable?
Blue Bins & Chutes
Other Recycling
Recommended
Freecycle / Give Away
While charities will not take food past the Best Before date, sharing such food with individuals does happen.
Some food donation groups are happy for people to offer packaged food as long as they declare clearly what dates are applicable and that the item in question has never been opened.
On Olio, food with a Use By date must be unlisted by midnight of that date. This means it is OK to list foods that are past their Best Before date but not past their Use By date. See below to understand the difference.
Olio
GoodHood
Online Freecycle Groups
Alternative
Tips & Suggestions
Learn to check for signs of spoilage. Smell and discoloration are your natural guides to food safety.
Depending on the type of food and the way it has been handled and stored, it can be safe to consume even years after the Best Before date. But in other cases, a food could already be bad before expiry. The dates are not substitutes for using your senses.
See below for more info.
Info & Insights
Oh boy.
Expired food is a loaded topic! Some people are happy to eat just about anything that doesn't smell and think expiry dates are a conspiracy by food companies.
Meanwhile others are convinced they will drop dead if they eat something one minute after midnight of the Best Before date.
Until there is Good Samaritan Food Donation protection in Singapore, charities will absolutely NOT accept food that is past the Best Before date and most require that food donations have at least 4-8 weeks left before expiry if not longer.
About those dates…
There is a difference between the Expiry Date, the Best Before date, the Sell By date, and the Use By date.
Did you know? The term Expiry Date is not used by the Singapore Food Agency.
Most non-refrigerated packaged items in Singapore tend to have a Best Before date though commonly people say Expiry Date to refer to this date. Best Before indicates how long the food will be at its best taste and quality and does not mean the cutoff date for food safety.
Use By dates are for highly perishable food such as milk and yoghurt.
Sell by dates inform retailers when to take the item off the shelves.
