At Food for Life, food safety is always a top priority. We carefully follow food industry standards for handling, storage, and transportation — maintaining a consistent cold chain from rescue to delivery. Every step we take ensures the food shared with our neighbours is safe, fresh, and ready to enjoy.
Learn more about Halton’s Public Health food safety guidelines for food banks.
We encourage our neighbours to follow best practices of:
- Washing all fresh food thoroughly
- Washing the tops of any cans before opening with soap and water
- Cooking your food thoroughly
- Washing and sanitizing your hands regularly
Best Before Dates
The best before date, also known as a durable life date, tells you when the durable life period of a prepackaged food ends.
Durable life means the anticipated amount of time that an unopened food product, when stored under appropriate
conditions, will retain its: freshness, taste, nutritional value, or any other qualities claimed by the manufacturer.
| Room Temp | Refrigerated | Frozen | Canned/Jarred | Boxed/Bagged | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit/Vegetable | Fresh 2-7 days | Fresh 1-4 weeks depending on produce | 1 year | 1 year | – |
| Bread | 1 week | 2 weeks | 1 month | – | 1 week |
| Grains & Cereals | – | – | – | – | 6-12 months |
| Meats Uncooked | Less than 2 hours | 0 days | 6 months | – | – |
| Deli Meats | Less than 2 hours | 5-7 days | 2-3 months | 1 year | – |
| Dairy (Pasteurized) | Less than 2 hours after opening | 2 weeks (after opened/reconstituted) | 6 months | 1 year | – |
Note: To be used as a guide only.
Developed by Food Banks Canada. This information is to be used as a guide only. It was developed based on general
knowledge, industry practices and the understanding that best before dates are about sensory quality. Canadian Food
Inspection Agency, Date Labelling on Pre-packaged Foods, Date Modified: 2013-07-07. Learn More
M.A. Freitas, J.C. Costa, Shelf life determination using sensory evaluation scores: A general Weibull modeling approach,
Computers & Industrial Engineering, Vol. 51, No. 4, 2006, pp. 652-670. A. Giménez, F. Ares, G. Ares, Sensory shelf-life estimation: A review of current methodological approaches, Food Research International, Vol. 49, No 1, 2012, pp. 311-325.
S. Guerra, C. Lagazio, L. Manzocco, et al., Risks and pitfalls of sensory data analysis for shelf life prediction: Data simulation applied to the case of coffee, ‘Food Science and Technology, Vol. 41, No. 10, 2008, pp. 2070-2078. Utah State University
Cooperative Extension Service, Food Storage: Dried Milk. Learn More
Temperature-Controlled Storage & Fleet
Onsite storage:
- Room for 100 pallets in our refrigerated (cooler) space, all temperature controlled and continuously monitored
- Space for 50 pallets in our frozen storage, also fully monitored for consistent temperatures
Offsite storage:
- Additional 70 pallet spaces of frozen storage at our offsite facility, with full temperature monitoring
Refrigerated fleet:
- 4 refrigerated straight trucks for larger loads
- 1 refrigerated van for smaller or flexible deliveries