AEST Foundations Certification Practice Test 2026 – Complete Exam Guide

Understanding how dates on products relate to quality versus safety helps you decide when to use items at their best. The last date to use a product to ensure it maintains its peak quality is the best used by date. After this date, quality such as flavor, texture, or potency may start to decline, even though the product might not be unsafe. Expiration dates, on the other hand, are about safety—the point at which the manufacturer can no longer guarantee that the product is safe to consume. A recommended use date is not as standardized and does not reliably indicate quality in the same way the best used by date does. So, the best used by date is the appropriate label for the last date to use a product for quality.