Minimum Product Life

We will always aim to offer you the best shelf-life available for all products within our range. To provide complete visibility of the life available we publish the current Best Before Date of stock being picked, displayed on each product page. This is the earliest date you will receive if ordering today. We also publish a ‘Minimum Life Promise’ on the product specification tab. This is available to you as guidance to the minimum life you might receive on this product before it would be treated as ‘short-dated’. In most cases, it’s unlikely that stock would reach this level.

Our Minimum Life Promise

The Minimum Life Promise is calculated as a proportion of the minimum that we are promised by our suppliers. Just as you do in your business, our suppliers need to achieve efficiencies in their stock holding and the shelf-life we receive from them can vary between the maximum life on new production and the minimum guaranteed life they offer.

This minimum guaranteed shelf-life on delivery from our suppliers can vary from 60 days to several months depending on the nature of the product.

In turn, we also need to order from our suppliers in efficient quantities that will allow us to maintain stock availability, and also to achieve the best possible prices for you. This can mean we need to hold stock for several weeks.

When making an order the important date to check is the Current Best Before Date this will tell you what shelf-life you can expect.
The Minimum Life Promise is for longer-term planning guidance only and would typically only be relevant where you need to rely on a consistent bulk order stock holding that meets a certain shelf-life.

Need stock with a longer date?

If you need stock of a longer date that is currently available or need to be assured of longer date stock than is offered by the Minimum Life Promise, do let us know before making your order and we will often be able to source new production stock as a bespoke order for you. Whilst this will result in a lead time before delivery it does mean that with a little notice, we should be able to meet your needs.