Singapore legislation
Regulation 10
Regulation 10
Date marking
Subregulation 1
The prepacked foods specified in the Second Schedule shall bear or have embossed or impressed on the label or elsewhere of the package, a date mark in the manner specified in paragraph (2) or (5) or in such other manner as may be approved by the Director-General.
Subregulation 2
Subject to paragraph (5), the expiry date in respect of any prepacked food shall be shown in one of the following ways:
“USE BY (here insert the day, month and year)”;
“SELL BY (here insert the day, month and year)”;
“EXPIRY DATE (here insert the day, month and year)”; or
“BEST BEFORE (here insert the day, month and year)”.
Subregulation 3
Where the validity of the date mark of any prepacked food to which this regulation applies is dependent on its storage, the storage direction of that food shall also be stated on its label or package.
Subregulation 4
The date mark shall be shown clearly and the size of the letters shall not be less than 3 mm in height.
Subregulation 5
Where any prepacked food as specified in item 8 of the Second Schedule is a raw produce, it shall be sufficient for the date mark in respect thereof to state the date of packing in the following manner: “PACKING DATE (here insert the day, month and year)”; “PACKED ON (here insert the day, month and year)”; or “PKD (here insert the day, month and year)”,or in such other similar manner as may be approved by the Director-General.
Subregulation 6
For the purpose of paragraph (5), raw produce shall include —
raw meat;
raw minced or chopped meat;
raw organs;
raw fish;
raw crustaceans; and
raw shellfish,but shall exclude processed or manufactured food products such as corned, cured, pickled or salted meat, smoked meat, hamburger meat and other burger meat, sausage meat, smoked fish, fish ball and fish cake.
Subregulation 7
The date referred to in paragraphs (2) and (5) shall be expressed in the following manner:
the day of the month shall be expressed in figures, where the figure is a single digit it shall be preceded by a zero;
the month of the year shall be expressed in words and may be abbreviated by using the first 3 letters of the alphabet of the month except that where the day is shown first then followed by the month and year, the month may be expressed in figures; and
the year shall be expressed in figures in full or by the last two figures of the year.
Subregulation 8
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this regulation, it shall not be necessary to state —
the year in the date mark of items 1 to 8 of the Second Schedule; or
the day in the date mark of items 9 to 19 of the Second Schedule.
Subregulation 9
Where it is impractical to put the whole of the date mark in one place on a label, the date may be put elsewhere on the package if the words “USE BY DATE ON”, “SELL BY DATE ON”, “EXPIRY DATE ON”, “BEST BEFORE DATE ON”, “PACKING DATE ON” or such other words to that effect as may be approved by the Director-General, are followed immediately in each case by a statement of the place on the package where the date is shown.
Subregulation 10
For the purpose of these Regulations, “BEST BEFORE” has the same meaning as “USE BY”.
Subregulation 11
Where the products are packed in bulk, it shall be sufficient to state either the date of manufacture or the expiry date.
Subregulation 12
This regulation shall not apply to dressed birds for which under regulation 60A the date of the slaughtering is required to be stated.