sell-by date

Related to sell-by date: shelf life

sell-by date

1. The date by which a perishable item must be sold by a store. Did you check the sell-by date on that carton of milk?
2. slang By extension, the figurative date by which one's usefulness or skill ends, usually due to aging. Primarily heard in UK. I'm sure they think I'm past my sell-by date after I mixed up all those important files. We need to find a new lead dancer, as Bella is past her sell-by date now and only getting older.
See also: date
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • have passed (someone's or something's) sell-by date
  • have passed your sell-by date
  • be past its sell-by date
  • be past the/(one's) sell-by date
  • best before date
  • to date
  • double date
  • heavy date
  • name the day
  • out of date
References in periodicals archive
"When it comes to sell-by dates, I make a decision based on smell."
Store manager Jacqui Challinor said they were committed to reducing their impact on the environment by making positive use of goods near or on their sell-by date.
Fruit, vegetables, bread and cheese were the items most likely to be eaten after their sell-by dates, according to BBC Good Food Magazine.
So what are we to make of the sell-by date? "Egg quality isn't affected for quite a long time, which allows for storage beyond the sell-by date," says Jones.
Three siblings running Yi Jin King Egg Products were freed on bail Tuesday after their company was accused of delivering eggs past their sell-by date to supermarket chains.
Jamie Oliver is our favourite celebrity chef, Delia Smith is past her sell-by date and Nigella Lawson makes us fat, according to a survey.
Each package has a Sell-By date of May 13-June 22 and bears the establishment number EST.
WARRINGTON legend Lee Briers is adamant he will not play on past his sell-by date.
Sell-by date April 11, 4,000AD.' The lesson, I think, is that if unpackaged, untreated meat can survive for 14,000 years in a natural deep-freeze without assistance from health and safety gnomes and the Woolly Mammoth Eating Advisory Panel, we should be slightly less respectful of sell-by dates.
"But with a fifth of people throwing away all items past their sell-by date, we are wasting a lot of the food we buy."
They also found examples where the sell-by date was obscured by the price label.
Asda Stores Ltd was also ordered to pay pounds 6,985 costs after pleading guilty to 11 offences of displaying sell-by date items in the Brade Drive branch.
She claimed the sell-by date system to ensure the freshness and quality of food could easily be changed by staff, who would wipe out existing dates and write in later dates.
Cardiff magistrates ordered owners of three stores in the city to pay up after stocking produce past its use-by or sell-by date.