A Greenpeace check shows that foods can still be consumed two months after expiration

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The environmental organization Greenpeace tested several foods for their shelf life in a long-term check. It showed that many foods are still edible even two months after the expiration of the best-before date.

Even two months (59 days) after the expiration of the best-before date (MHD), fresh eggs, Striezel, assorted bread, Selchroller, and cream cheese are harmless and still edible. Only hard-boiled eggs failed the test conducted by the Food Testing Institute (LVA). Proper storage can significantly minimize food waste – currently, up to 415,000 tons of edible food from private households is in the trash.

Food often still edible two months after the expiration date
“If you store food properly, you get more out of it,” says Melanie Ebner, agriculture spokeswoman for Greenpeace in Austria. “For just about all products, it helps to store them in a dark, cool and dry place. Eggs are best stored in the middle refrigerator compartment with the pointed sides down. Meat should be placed in the lowest refrigerator compartment and bread at room temperature in a lunch box.” Fruits and vegetables, for example, should not be washed until right before they are processed, or the aging process will be accelerated. What lies together can also be decisive: Tomatoes or apples, for example, should better be stored separately from other fruits and vegetables, as they secrete the plant hormone ethylene. This accelerates the ripening process of many other foods.

Proper storage increases the shelf life of food
The individual products are stored in the food testing facility under the conditions recommended on the packaging for the Greenpeace test. Depending on the product, this is at room temperature or refrigerated at 7-10 °C in our test. The Greenpeace long-term test shows: Five of the six products tested passed the sensory and microbiological laboratory tests even two months after the expiry date. Striezel, bread, Selchroller, cream cheese, and fresh eggs were still perceived as perfectly edible in the sensory test; only the hard-boiled eggs failed.