Butchers order with no dates. Am I being thick?

[Rudolph98]

Hi all, sorry not really aibu. I’ve not really ever bought meat from the butchers before. Tbf we normally go for dinner at the in laws so never had to buy much meat at Christmas. In the year we buy it from the supermarket!

Decided to treat ourselves and order some bits from the butchers. Got a fair amount for £50. I’m impressed.

But it hasn’t got dates on? The bacon has. But the beef joint, gammon joint, chicken breasts, sausages and burgers I ordered for a treat have not.

Is this normal? I’m clueless 🤣 the beef and gammon is vaccum packed!

Ideas?

Never any dates on meat from a butchers. Same as bread from a bakery, fruit and veg from greengrocers or fish from a fish shop.

We get all our meat from our butcher and I've never thought about dates.

I usually try to freeze things I am.not going to use within the next 3 days. Although if its beef or bacon I will stretch that to 5 days.

Thank you. Mind blank 🤣 I’ve frozen the chicken breasts and burgers as probably won’t use them yet. I assume as it’s their Christmas delivery week it’s all good until Christmas at least!

Cooking the gammon joint this afternoon!

Bacon has a date on which is good. Dated until Jan.

I thought you meant the fruit, like your family had always had dates on their meat and you assumed they came as standard

It’s a bit of a guessing game when you order from butchers but with smell and sight you should be able to survive.

This is why dates are such a nonsense. If it's bad you'll know. If it's not, eat it, regardless of what the date says.

I thought you meant the fruit, like your family had always had dates on their meat and you assumed they came as standard

I thought the same as you!

It does help with meal planning to know how long things are likely to last.
Like other posters, I freeze anything I’m not going to use within about 3 days. Anything processed should last fairly well (sausages, burgers, bacon etc).
Fish I’d plan to eat same day or following one.
Fruit & veg I eat when I want them, it’s incredibly unlikely anything would go off within a week if you store properly.

We get all of our meat from the butchers, and it never has dates on. As a general rule, anything we buy on Saturday I will eat up to Wednesday (5 days). Obviously look at it and smell it first, but I’ve never (to the best of my knowledge) got ill from anything from within 5 days.