What Does "Best Before Date" Imply In China?

 It appears nowadays clear that Chinese authorities are moving towards strict application of food safety provisions. Recently, Shanghai was the scene of a new food safety scandal, the last of a long series, however different from the others under various perspectives: we are referring to the recent closing of popular French bakery FARINE in Shanghai.

As this matter is still under investigation from Chinese, we do not want to make any specific comment to this case; rather, we want to share some general considerations about a key legal issue involved in this case: "shelf life" of food products under Chinese Law.

Firstly, it is worth noting the difference between the concepts of "expiration date" and "date of mini-mum durability" (or "best before").