Many people throw away their products after the best-before date has expired, even though the goods would have been fine - but what should you do if the actual date was simply covered over?

At the moment we are receiving a lot of inquiries about two photos that are being shared on Facebook.

In the first photo you can see a Kinder Surprise egg with a best before date (Best Before) until June 29th, 2018. In the other photo, the sticker with the egg's best before date has been half removed and underneath there is another best before date until August 24th, 2017:

Screenshot by mimikama.org
Screenshot by mimikama.org

This not only causes confusion among users.

Does the Ferrero company actually end up covering expired products with a new best before date sticker?

The fact check

Of course we wanted to know exactly that and contacted Ferrero's press office. We received the following answer:

“Dear Mr. W.,
after examining the information available to us, we can inform you of the following.

The surprise egg shown in the photo was produced at our location in Belsk, Poland, for the Romanian market. The best-before date for this product, August 24, 2017, was printed directly on the product packaging. The surprise egg was only delivered to the local store with the original coding and was not covered with a sticker. Therefore, based on the information available to us, we can only assume that the pasting was carried out by third parties and therefore beyond our control. We cannot understand whether the photo is a fake or whether the product was actually purchased in this form in stores.

Best regards

Your Ferrero press office

Ferrero press office
Telephone: +49 69 6805-2260
Email: presse@ferrero.com

Ferrero company's response to mimikama's request. / Screenshot by mimikama.org
Ferrero company's response to mimikama's request. / Screenshot by mimikama.org

Ferrero itself did not “extend” the best before date of this ice cream.

Can you extend the best before date?

The Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety explains:

However, the expiry of the best-before date does not mean that the food automatically has reduced value or is no longer suitable for consumption. If the best-before date is only guaranteed if certain temperatures are maintained, they must be stated. The person obliged to label the product is responsible for determining the best-before date . He must carefully ascertain the expected shelf life of the products based on his general long-term experience or based on storage tests.

Food Cluster website also points out:

This clearly stipulates that the manufacturer/distributor of food must state a best before date up to which he can guarantee that the food retains its specific properties when stored correctly. It is possible to sell food after the best-before date if this defect is clearly pointed out.

Result:

The best-before date of the surprise egg was subsequently pasted over by a third party.

It is not possible to understand who pasted over the best before date and whether it was actually sold that way in stores.


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )