How I Use the Date Labelling Template with Customers in Pilla
Date labelling is one of those controls that looks simple on paper but falls apart in practice. I've opened walk-in fridges in hundreds of kitchens and found the same thing: unlabelled containers of prep shoved behind newer stock, use by dates scribbled on masking tape that's already peeling off, and nobody able to tell me when the sauce at the back was made. The food might be fine. It might not. That's the problem.
The rules themselves aren't complicated. Cooked food gets three days including the day of production. Defrosted food gets 24 hours. Frozen food gets a month. But the gap between knowing those rules and actually applying them on a Friday night when the kitchen is backed up and the label printer has jammed is where most businesses fail. This article covers what your date labelling procedures need to include, gives you a template you can edit for your operation, and explains the bits that trip people up most often.
Key Takeaways
- What is date labelling in food safety? Date labelling is the process of marking opened, decanted, cooked, and frozen food with production dates, use by dates, and allergen information so your team knows what's safe to serve and what needs to go
- Why do you need a date labelling policy? Regulation (EC) 852/2004 requires food businesses to have systems that ensure food past its safe use date isn't served. Without clear labelling rules, staff guess, and guessing is how out-of-date food reaches a customer's plate
- How do you set it up in Pilla? Use the knowledge hub template below, edit it to match your operation, and share it with your team through the app so everyone has access and you can track who's read it
- How do you automate the follow-up? Set up Poppi to chase staff who haven't acknowledged the policy and flag when it's due for review
Article Content
Understanding What's Required of You
Date labelling is one of your prerequisite programmes. It sits underneath HACCP and controls a straightforward risk: food being served after it's no longer safe to eat. Without a clear labelling system, that risk is invisible. A container of chicken curry in the fridge looks the same on day one as it does on day five. The label is the only thing that tells you the difference.
There are two types of date marking that matter in practice. Use by dates apply to high-risk, perishable foods and are a safety limit. Once a use by date has passed, the food must be discarded. Best before dates apply to longer-life products and are a quality marker. Food past its best before date is usually safe to eat but may not be at its best. Your team needs to understand this distinction because the consequences of getting it wrong are different. Serving food past a use by date is a food safety offence. Serving food past a best before date is a quality issue.
The legal basis is Regulation (EC) 852/2004, which requires food business operators to have procedures in place to ensure food past its safe use date is not sold or served. In the UK, your EHO will check date labelling during an inspection. They'll open the fridge, pull out containers, and look at labels. I've watched EHOs do this dozens of times, and the first thing they check is whether the labels are there at all, whether the dates are correct, and whether anything in the fridge is out of date. Missing or incorrect labels lose you marks on your food hygiene rating quickly.
The most common problem I see isn't that businesses don't label food. It's that they label it inconsistently. The breakfast chef labels everything properly, but the evening team doesn't. Or labels go on when the manager is watching but not when they're off. A date labelling policy only works if it's applied the same way by everyone, every shift.
Setting It Up as a Knowledge Hub Entry
I've built a stock rotation template in Pilla that includes a full date labelling and storage procedures section. It covers the rules for decanted products, cooked food, frozen food, defrosted food, allergen labelling, and storage requirements. It gives you a structured starting point, but you need to edit it to reflect how your kitchen actually works.
In the knowledge hub, create a new entry and tag it with "Food Safety Management System". Use the same tag across all of your food safety policies so they are grouped together and Poppi can track them as a set. Assign the entry to all teams so that everyone in the business can access it.
The template is designed to be edited, not just filed. Read through the date labelling section carefully. If your operation uses a label printer rather than handwritten labels, add that detail. If you have house rules that are stricter than the defaults (some businesses use a 2-day rule for cooked food rather than 3), update the template to reflect that. The EHO wants to see that your policy matches your actual practice.
Stock rotation
Stock rotation is critical to the supply of safe food but also important for the supply of food at its best quality.
Effective ordering and stock rotation will ensure that food is always safe to eat and of the best quality as well as avoiding unnecessary wastage. Effective stock rotation can in many cases be managed by using the principle of FIFO i.e. First in, first out. Especially where use by dates are concerned. This can be managed through not holding excessive levels of stock, opening and closing checks and maintaining effective storage temperatures and procedures.
Safety points
- Check all food being delivered to ensure use by dates and best before dates are acceptable, that it has been delivered at the correct temperatures, that the packaging is intact, that there is no possibility of cross contamination from raw to RTE foods or to check if allergenic contamination has occurred. Also checks for pest activity or pest damage to packaging
- Ensure that staff who accept deliveries have been trained to know what would be deemed acceptable or not and that they fully understand delivery records
- Correctly date label all foods that have been opened, decanted, unused, cooked or prepared, for freezing etc.
- Carry out daily inspections of fridges, freezers and dry stores to identify foods that are approaching expiry dates or out of date, ensure stock is rotated to ensure use before expiry dates
- Dispose of out of date foods and record in the wastage log
- Go through the menu regularly and plan stock you will need in advance, experience in this should avoid unnecessary wastage
Stock rotation procedure
- When deliveries are received you must rotate old and new stock to ensure that food safety and quality is maintained
- To do this, remove old stock first, replace the new stock in space of the old stock, then place old stock in front of or on top of newer stock ensuring it will be used first, make sure that fresh containers are used when needed to avoid cross contamination and food spoilage
- Ensure robust control and management of items within the dry storage areas ensuring best before dates are not exceeded
- Ensure items in refrigerated storage are controlled and managed vigilantly ensuring that use by dates are never exceeded, these items must be discarded immediately if safe usage date has passed
- Ensure robust control and management of frozen items so that maximum quality and safety is maintained at all times
Date labelling and storage procedures
General rules to be followed by all staff:
- Do not cover any original labelling on a product with another label
- If a product is taken out of its original packaging, decanted or stored otherwise, consideration must be taken of its original use by date if this product is not thermally processed
- Only approved labels should be used that show, production date, use by dates and allergens contained therein
- Products that have been thermally processed (cooked/boiled etc.), if not to be used immediately, will now require a label showing a new use by date, this date should not exceed 3 days including the day of production. For example, a product produced on Monday must be used by the following Wednesday at the latest, otherwise this must be discarded and this waste recorded
- When prepared food is frozen, indicate the date of freezing, complete the use by date, which must not exceed one month from date of freezing, indicate any allergens contained therein
- When frozen food is defrosted it will have a maximum safe usability of 24 hours after defrosting (the defrosting process itself can take 12-24 hours) food taken out of frozen storage must be used within 2 days maximum. If not used this food must be discarded and this waste recorded
- Store all decanted foods in lidded containers
- Consider specific safe storage conditions for foods containing allergens to prevent cross contamination at all times
- Ensure all frozen items are stored appropriately and/or wrapped completely to prevent freezer burn, which can compromise the quality of the product
Corrective actions and monitoring
- Freeze stock that will not be used before use by date, adjust stock levels accordingly in future
- If you have any reason to suspect that food has not been handled safely or not delivered at a safe temperature, reject the delivery or quarantine and contact supplier to remove
- Review your delivery acceptance procedure including increased supervision and retrain staff if necessary
- Carry out more frequent spot checks
- Review supplier and robustness of their procedures and change supplier if necessary
Delivery acceptance, documentation and recording
- Check all deliveries thoroughly and ensure staff are trained to carry out this procedure correctly
- Use organoleptic monitoring (senses) to ensure that products look/smell/feel fit for consumption
- Ensure record delivery receipt temperatures for both chilled and frozen goods (CCP)
- Check condition of secondary and tertiary packaging ensuring it is intact and doesn't present any risk
- Check products are well within accepted limits of use by and best before dates
- Check for potential risks from cross contamination, both from micro-organisms, raw and RTE (ready to use) and risks from major allergens
- Check vehicle and packaging for evidence of pest activity, pest ingress and activity from SPIs (stored product insects e.g. flour mites, weevils, beetles, moths etc)
- Check general cleanliness of vehicle
- Check that all documentation is filled in correctly
This is a preview of the template. In Pilla, you can edit this to match your business.
What I'd want to see when reviewing this:
The date labelling section is the part I focus on most. I'd want to see that your team understands the 3-day rule for cooked food, including the day of production. That's where the most confusion happens. If you cook a sauce on Monday, Monday is day one, not day zero. Use by Wednesday, not Thursday. I've corrected this in more kitchens than I can count.
I'd also want to see that allergen information is included on every label for prepared, cooked, or frozen food. It's not enough to label a container "tomato sauce" with a date. If that sauce contains celery, the label needs to say so. The person pulling it from the fridge three days later might not be the person who made it, and they need to know what allergens are present without having to track someone down and ask.
The frozen food labelling rules matter too. The label needs the date of freezing, the use by date (maximum one month from freezing), and the allergens. When someone pulls a container from the back of the freezer three weeks later, that label is the only information they have.
Common mistakes I see:
The 3-day calculation is the most frequent error. Staff count three days from the day after production rather than including the day of production. Monday production means use by Wednesday, not Thursday. One day out might not sound like much, but it's the difference between compliant and non-compliant, and an EHO will check the maths.
Labels placed over original packaging information are a recurring problem. When you decant a product and stick a new label on the container, that label must not cover the original use by date, ingredients, or allergen information on the packaging. I've seen labels stuck directly over the manufacturer's allergen panel. That's a serious issue if someone needs to check the original information.
Staff often forget that defrosted food has a 24-hour window after defrosting is complete, not 24 hours from when they took it out of the freezer. Defrosting a large item can take 12 to 24 hours on its own. The clock starts when the food is fully thawed, and that distinction catches people out regularly.
Unlabelled food in the fridge with no one able to confirm what it is or when it was made has to be discarded. I've seen businesses lose significant amounts of food this way. The solution is simple: label everything at the point of production, not later when you remember.
Automate the Follow-Up with Poppi
Writing the policy is one thing. Making sure your team has actually read it is another. Poppi can handle the chasing so you don't have to.
If you mark the knowledge hub entry as mandatory, Poppi will track who's read it and who hasn't. You can set up automations to chase staff who are behind, notify managers when someone completes the policy, and get a regular report showing where the gaps are.
Here are three automations I'd set up for any knowledge hub policy:
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Overdue training reminders
Automatically chase team members who have mandatory policies they haven't read yet. Poppi sends the reminder so you don't have to.
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Video completion alerts
Get notified when a team member finishes reading or watching a policy, so you can track progress without chasing.
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.
Training gap analysis
Get a regular AI report showing which team members are behind on mandatory policies and where the gaps are across your team.
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.