What Should You Do if a Free Sample Arrives After Its Best-Before Date?

If a free food sample turns up with a best-before date already behind it, you can usually still use it — a best-before date is about quality, not safety. The one thing to check first is which words the pack actually carries: "best before" is a quality estimate, while "use by" is a safety deadline, and past a use-by date the food should go in the bin. Free samples land on doormats after long warehouse stays and slow postal legs, so an out-of-date arrival is common rather than sinister.

The useful question is not whether the brand made a mistake, but what the label type, the packaging condition and the product category tell you to do next.

Verification note: Program terms and availability can change. This page was checked against linked sources on September 15, 2026.

Best before versus use by: the only distinction that matters

The UK Food Standards Agency says a best-before date relates to quality rather than safety: food is usually still safe after it, though flavour, texture or nutritional value may have faded. A stale-tasting biscuit bar or a cereal sample that has lost its crunch is a disappointing sample, not a health incident. A use-by date is the opposite case.

The same FSA guidance is blunt that you should never eat food after its use-by date, even when it looks and smells perfectly fine, because the bacteria that matter here are invisible and odourless. This split is written into law, not left to manufacturers' discretion. Article 24 of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, retained in UK law, requires highly perishable foods to carry a use-by date instead of a best-before, and food past that date is deemed unsafe under Regulation 178/2002.

In practice: supplying something past its best-before is not an offence, supplying it past its use-by is.

Check the packaging before you trust the date

The FSA's reassurance about best-before dates comes with conditions attached, and posted samples are exactly where those conditions strain. The guidance assumes the packaging is unopened and undamaged and that the food has been stored as the label instructs. A sample that has been squeezed through a letterbox, sat in a hot delivery van, or arrived with a split seal has not necessarily met either condition.

Before you open anything, run through the obvious checks: Any of those moves the decision away from "past its best" and towards "bin it". The date is only one input.

• Is the outer seal intact, or has the pouch split in transit?
• Does the label say "keep refrigerated" or "store in a cool, dry place" — and could the delivery have honoured that?
• Is the pack swollen, leaking, stained, or does it smell wrong on opening?
• Is there visible mould, discolouration, or anything growing?

Infant formula is the hard exception

Do not apply any of the above to a baby formula sample. The FDA states that infant formula must carry a "Use By" date, and that up to that date the manufacturer has confirmed the product holds at least the labelled amount of each nutrient. A past-date formula sample should be discarded, not fed to a baby.

US federal practice otherwise runs in the same direction as the UK guidance. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service says that apart from infant formula, dates are not an indicator of safety and are not required by federal law at all — manufacturers apply them to signal best quality, and FSIS recommends the phrasing "Best if Used By". There is a limitation worth holding onto.

The FDA notes that manufacturers need no agency approval for these voluntary quality dates and need not disclose how they arrived at them. A best-before is a company's own estimate, not a tested safety threshold — which cuts both ways, and is a reason to trust your own inspection of the pack over the printed number.

What if the sample is a cosmetic, not a food?

Free samples skew heavily towards skincare, haircare and makeup, where the rules are looser still. The FDA says no US law requires cosmetics to carry expiration dates or a period-after-opening symbol; both are voluntary industry practice. The exception sits with products regulated as drugs rather than cosmetics — sunscreens and acne treatments among them — which must be stability-tested and dated.

A past-date sunscreen sachet is a real concern, because the protection factor is what the date is certifying. A past-date moisturiser sample is a judgement call about texture, separation and smell.

Do you have to return it, and can you complain?

You are not obliged to send it back or pay for it. The US Federal Trade Commission's guidance on unordered merchandise says you never have to pay for or return goods you did not order, and may treat them as a free gift — but note the carve-out: items clearly marked as a gift or free sample sit outside that keep-it protection. So you owe the sender nothing either way; you simply cannot lean on the unordered-merchandise rule for something labelled a sample.

Where you take a complaint depends on which problem you have. UK readers should note the FSA routes food safety and hygiene reports — including food supplied past its use-by date, mould or decay, and missing allergen information — to the local authority food team covering the business's location. Pure quality complaints, including a best-before date that had already passed on arrival, go to the business itself.

That distinction is worth getting right the first time. A stale sample is a message to the brand's customer service team; a mouldy one, or one supplied past its use-by, belongs with the council's environmental health officers, who can act on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

The sample has no date printed on it at all. Is that legal?

For a cosmetic in the US, yes — the FDA says expiration dates and period-after-opening symbols on cosmetics are voluntary. For food, USDA FSIS notes that federal law does not require dates either, except on infant formula.

Can I report the brand to trading standards for sending an out-of-date sample?

If it was past its use-by date, that is a food safety matter and the FSA directs it to the local authority food team where the business is based. A passed best-before date is a quality complaint and goes to the business.

The sample looks and smells completely fine but the use-by date passed yesterday. Is it really a problem?

The FSA's position is explicit that you should not eat food after its use-by date even when it looks and smells fine. Under retained Regulation 178/2002 the food is deemed unsafe past that point.