[punky]

'Back in the day' (before use-by dates) when people used to sniff things before deciding to eat them, it was a completely different era, incomparable with ours. With the absence of fridges or freezers, the housewife toddled down to the grocers more-or-less every day to buy food that was freshly delivered.

Nowadays food is already stretched as much as possible to increase profitability (due to competition) but also funnily-enough to decrease wastage (due to lifestyle changes - food with the longest dates get bought)