There are very few things that start to rot near or even well after a "best before" date (ie: the point of the article/regulations). Vegetables are the worst "m

There are very few things that start to rot near or even well after a "best before" date (ie: the point of the article/regulations). Vegetables are the worst "mental" group; there's no health/safety issue involved, just the change to a slimy texture that turns people off. Fruit goes soft, but takes 1-2 weeks past its date to become undesirable - and by then, it's obvious that there is rot or mold. Bread is fine until you can smell or taste mold, no date checking required. Unprocessed meat and dairy products are really the only ones to be concerned about. Nearly every other product is just a matter of freshness - a subjective perceived metric of quality more than anything else. Really, just try smelling and then tasting it. By and large, our noses and tastebuds are amazing natural filters. If it isn't so revolting that you need to gasp for air or spit it out, you're probably safe. So very few products actually "go bad" to the point of being dangerous to consume. I'm curious to see just how clear-cut the "use by" label will be. I suspect that even with these changes, such a label will continue to be abused to label things as "unsafe" long before it is really the case. The industry desire to have you throw out perfectly good product (and buy more to replace it) is far too strong for regulation to make a difference. I wouldn't be surprised if they start adding dairy (or some unstable chemical) to products that don't normally contain such things, in order to get away with marking their product as having a shorter shelf life than required.