Restaurant Use-By Date Tracker

It tells you which products need using first, which opened foods need watching and which items are close to their date. In restaurants, cafés and hotels it helps cut waste, avoid buying twice and show that you have working control of dates, batches and corrective actions within your HACCP system.

The use-by date marks the last day a food can be eaten safely. The best-before date shows how long it keeps its expected quality, which does not carry the same food safety risk. The template lets you record both and add notes so the team knows whether to use, check, hold back or remove a product.

FIFO means first in, first out; FEFO means first expired, first out. The template records the delivery date, opening date and use-by date so you can rank products by real priority. In a kitchen it usually works best to combine both: keep an eye on older batches, but serve first whatever expires soonest.

Above all meat, fish, dairy, in-house preparations, opened sauces, frozen products, repackaged food, prepared mise en place, desserts, pastries, buffet items and anything that could lose its traceability once opened or moved to another container. It is also useful for tracking samples, batches and products withdrawn after an incident.

Cold rooms and fresh products should be checked daily, ideally at opening or closing. For dry stores a weekly check may be enough, depending on how busy the business is. The template is designed to flag priorities, owners and corrective actions, not just to write dates down and forget them.