Longer-lasting: South Korea launches new database and guidance values to refine expiration dates system
South Korea first announced the new expiration dates system initiative back in January 2023 as part of an attempt to reduce national food wastage. The system was officially launched in January 2024.
This replaced the previous system that was based on ‘sell-by’ dates by which retailers had to legally remove products from shelves, as these were found to be well-within the timeframe of food still being safe for consumption.
In the latest update to this initiative, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has published a detailed list of ‘expiration date reference values’ for a wide range of food and beverage items, which manufacturers are expected to use when determining what dates to be printed on product packaging.
“We have published reference values for some 884 products to date including snacks and breads, and in the reports from the most recent experiments that have been completed we now have values for popular food types such as chocolates and mixed drinks (drinking water that has been purified and had minerals re-added),” MFDS Minister Oh Yoo-kyung said via a formal statement.
“For chocolates, we have determined that guidance for the expiration dates can be expanded to a consumption period from 48 to 154 days, as compared to the previous 30 to 91 days; and for mixed drinks this will be expanded from 60 to 180 days as compared to the previous 80 to 298 days.
“MFDS has published these expiration date reference values as a provisional timeframe suggested for the food or beverage, after we have conducted experiments for each food type – Food firms can select the best date within the range provided, based on specific factors such as product characteristics, packaging methods, distribution environment and so on.
“This initiative is to support food firms that find it difficult to conduct their own experiments of this sort on their products, and we are currently working on similar values for more popular foods such as tomato ketchup.”
Other major items of note include fruit jams which have an expanded expiration timeframe from 60-90 days to 106-171 days; coffee from 90-112 days to 138-224 days; processed soy milk from 303 days to 454 days; ginseng beverages from 12 months to 17 months, mayonnaise from eight months to 11 months; alcohol from 90 days to 160 days; and instant foods from 272-273 days to 527-529 days.
New search function
Given the wide range of products being produced by the food and beverage industry in the country, MFDS has also developed a database covering all of these guidance values as well and integrated a search function to help food firms more easily find data on their target products.
“This search function has been incorporated into the database in order to help food firms more easily detect and check the expiration date reference values which are appropriate and applicable to them,” the ministry added.
“The product characteristics will also be displayed alongside the values in order to help firms determine the best expiration date to use, all in one window.
“We will also release the relevant reports for each food type containing the experiment setting and other information to help them make the best decision possible – this can be found on either the MFDS website or the Korea Food Industry Association website.”
