[Lev1a]

Over the last few years here in Germany many, many food products have gained a little note next to the "MHD" (Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum, [1]) which says something like "oft länger gut" ("often viable for longer") or "ansehen, riechen, probieren" ("Look, smell, try").

And IIRC the EU is also debating the removal of MHD from staple foods that are shelf-stable for years, like dried pasta, uncooked rice etc. Normal sugar already doesn't have an MHD, although jam sugar is marked with the year of manufacture since they have other compounds in them as well beside the sugar itself.

Where i work all all the food that's simply past its MHD gets collected every morning by the Red Cross for food banks ("Die Tafel"). Obviously if a foods container is damaged or it's rotted fruits/veg or it would be unsafe to consume for another reason [2], that stuff gets thrown out (into bins collected for biomass processing).

[1]: pretty sure it's the same as "best (if used) by date" since products from abroad are sometimes marked "BBD <date>" instead of "MHD <date>" (at least on the transport packaging).

[2]: like lazy customers not putting frozen or cooled foods back but leaving them elsewhere in the warm store, something which REALLY aggravates me.