Shortly after graduating from college, in what seems like a lifetime ago now, I worked for three years in Baker Lake, Nunavut as a grocery manager for the Northwest Company.
Living and working above the Arctic Circle came with challenges for a “southerner” like me. No vacation for 11 months (we were given four weeks of vacation a year, all of which were lumped together so we could go south), lots of darkness in the winter (nearly 24 hours a day), no darkness in the summer, and high grocery prices.
As a grocery manager, it was my job to make sure the store shelves stayed stocked. For fresh goods, such as produce and dairy, we had two planes a week that came to town – there are no roads leading to the south from Baker Lake – so this task was relatively easy. However, when it comes to canned and dry goods, that task was a little more difficult.
As we all know, flying isn’t cheap. When it comes to cargo, you pay per pound for shipping goods. With that in mind, you can imagine how much a bag of sugar or flour would cost if you are bringing it in by plane.
So we didn’t.
Every year in the late summer or early fall, we would receive a large order of goods on a barge. At our store, for example, we had two boats come in each year and would unload 50 or more sea containers to stock our warehouse in a town of 1,600. Naturally, when you are bringing in 50 or 60 cases of vegetable soup – and being as far away as possible from the vendor – sometimes you get some poorly-dated product. By that, I mean it’s best before date is six months after receiving it, not a year or two as expected.
The store manager there, Allan Hart, taught me more in the first six months I was in Baker Lake about business than I learned in three years of college. One of the most low-key lessons he taught me was about the best-before date on food products.
“It’s best before, not bad after,” he said in his Nova Scotian accent. “Soup is good for about a year after the date on the can.”
I, like many others, thought the date on the can was a drop-dead date. When I admitted this, Allan told me, “Do you think the soup in the can knows what day it is? It doesn’t know it says May 1, 2009 on the can, and on May 2 it goes bad.”
Up until recently, I hadn’t thought much about that conversation with Allan until last week, when I read Pauline Kerr’s opinion piece for this week’s paper.
With food prices being as high as they are, and food bank usage being as high as it is – 38 per cent more individuals using food banks over 2021-22, and 36 per cent more total visits to food banks over 2021-22, according to the latest data released by Feed Ontario – we’re all looking for ways to waste less food.
According to the Share Food Program, here is some useful data for knowing if food in your cupboard or fridge is still good:
“Best by” or “best if used by” date tells you when the food will have the best flavour. It is still safe to eat past this date.
“Use by” or “expiration” date is the last date the product will be at its peak quality. It is still safe to eat past this date (except for baby formula).
“Packing/Manufacturing” date is used by the manufacturer for tracking, and it not related to food quality or safety.
“Sell by” date tells the story how long to display the product for sale, and the product is still safe to eat past this date.
The following food products are good for up to one year after the date on the package:
– packaged foods like cereal, pasta, dried beans and baking mixes;
– frozen foods; and
– canned goods including soup, condiments, meat, fruit and vegetables.
Butter, cheese and eggs are good for up to 30 days after the date. Milk, yogurt and cream cheese are good for up to seven days after the date.
As always, use common sense when dealing with foods – if it looks off or smells off, play it safe.
Remember, “It’s best before, not bad after.”
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Mike Wilson is the editor of Midwestern Newspapers. Comments and feedback are welcome at mwilson@midwesternnewspapers.com.
