It's disgusting to read a news item the other in the paper about rotting food stuff in the warehouse of the social welfare department in the rural areas. Those food items like sacks of rice and canned foods of sardines and meat, have expired. The culprit is the lack of inventory system. Those stocks that expired were obviously there for a number of years and they have been neglected. The warehouse stocks are for calamities when the local population of the province would be needing food due to floods or typhoons. Can you imagine what would happen if those expired food items were not discovered to be unfit for human consumption? If a calamity strikes and those expired food items were distributed to the calamity victims, it would create a bigger calamity.
Canned foods and most packaged foods do not expire. They have a "best by" or similar date that companies are required to put on them but they can still be edible for 20 years or more. We have stores here that buy "expired". food from stores and resell them at a discount. It is a good way to save money on groceries and still get good food.