Best Before Dates

Here at the Highway Heritage Stop, the quality of our goods is very important to us.

You may have noticed some items, especially chips, have reached or are soon to reach their best before dates, even though this stock arrived recently in the country.

Few people outside of the FMCG industry are aware that one batch of products gets split into local stock for the local market, and export stock for the international market. 

Stock for the local market gets marked with around 3-6 months as a best before date, whereas export stock gets marked with 6-9 months. 

That’s right, the exact same batch of product can have two varying best before dates!

Products that have reached their best before date are still very safe for consumption and can remain fresh for many months after.

Unfortunately, because of Covid-19 and other factors, many countries have halted export stock on a lot of popular lines, chips being one of the most affected. 

Because of this, we can only source stock, which is intended for local markets, meaning the best before dates appear a lot shorter than in the past. 

You also have to take into consideration that stock takes about 12-18 weeks to reach New Zealand shores, so by the time it’s up on our shelves, it has already reached the best before date.

The quality of our products is very important to us, and we would never sell anything that we wouldn’t use ourselves, is unpleasant, or unfit for consumption. 

Occasionally we do miss something, so if you are ever unhappy with a product, please return it and let us know, and we’ll happily refund you under the right circumstances. T&Cs apply. 

Unfortunately, we simply cannot sell every single item, especially newly arrived stock, at a discounted rate. 

If we or any other SA Grocer did do this then we would all go out of business and be stuck without our favourites from back home!

Our customers mean so much to us, as we wouldn’t be here without your support! 

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you are ever unsatisfied with a product or experience. 

We welcome your feedback!