FEFO (first expired, first out) is a stock rotation method in which goods with the nearest expiry or best-before date are dispatched before those with later dates, reducing the risk of out-of-date stock reaching buyers.
In trade practice
Warehouse management systems enforce FEFO by directing pickers to the batch carrying the earliest expiry date, regardless of when that batch arrived. At intake, staff record the best-before or use-by date for every pallet so the system can rank batches correctly. A common error is entering expiry dates inconsistently, for example mixing date formats, which causes the system to sequence batches incorrectly and can result in longer-dated stock being picked first.
In a specification
Warehousing agreements for food products with variable shelf lives typically specify FEFO as the mandatory rotation logic and require that expiry date records are maintained per batch and available for audit.