[Matth]

How do you know how old something is, if there are no dates, it may not be be perishable, and it may be safe indefinitely.

The answer is education and clearer labelling.

A "USE BY" date should be in red, it's there on products which will become unsafe or unusable with longer storage.

A "DISPLAY UNTIL" date conveys very little, mainly for stock management, and clearly, the product should be able to stand reasonable storage.

"BEST BEFORE", actually tells you that something IS expected to be safe for longer, just that the quality may be impaired.

Now cereal, found that every box of one I liked (and was on special) was past it's best before, now if they'd been allowed to heaviliy discount them, I'd have had a couple, since dry cereal in a sealed bag, is not going to deteriorate that fast - that said, I would't fancy a cereal that was a year past it's best date - and that's the thing, if a box got pushed to the back, on your shelf, or the stores, how do you know HOW old it is, with no date.