Buying Ripe Cheese

Pre-packed (shrink-wrapped) cheese or cheese packed in containers will have a ‘best before’ or ‘use-by’ date (expiry date) or ‘sell-by’ date (pull date). It is assumed that, in the right conditions, the cheese will continue to mature up until the ‘use-by’ date and from then on it will start to deteriorate. The ‘sell-by’ date is rather more arbitrary and may mean that the cheese will keep for a few more days or even weeks — the shop just has to have sold it by that date.