What’s the oldest (and probably mouldiest) item of food you have found in a house?

You might have been clearing out a relative’s kitchen cupboard who has sadly passed away or even your own in the run-up to moving house.

Perhaps you just came across a tin from the 80s in the middle of a general clear-out you’ve been putting off.

Well, it seems plenty of people have found some rather old but foodie treasures recently, according to some Facebook users on the Everything Student group.

An original post that included a picture of a Tesco Value Coco Pops box with the original white and blue packaging has sparked a huge conversation about ancient finds in a kitchen cupboard, with more than 1,000 comments.

The image showed the Tesco Value cereal had a best-before end date of January 2003.

It was captioned: “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve just found in my nans cupboard!”

In response to this, someone joked “this should be considered a family heirloom now. Give it to your first born!!” while others were shocked to realise the best-before date was before they were born.

This person wrote: “If it passes the smell test it’ll be fine….”

“Wish they still did that and they only cost like 30p and still taste as good,” said another.

One Facebook account replied: “Vintage coco snaps, take them on antiques road show.”

What is the oldest piece of edible food?

But what else did the members of the Everything Student group on Facebook confess to finding? Let’s take a look.

This user shared: “I once found a tin of celebrations with a date of 2003 on. I told my Nan and her response was ‘That’s okay. Eat them up’.”

One person commented: “I removed a tin of chopped ham from my mum's cupboard that had been there since before dates were added to food packaging. Contents were probably older than me.”

Discontinued UK Sweets/Chocolates

As someone also mentioned in the comments of the post, best-before dates were only printed on food items in the UK in the 1980s – making this tin around 40 years old.

In the comments of the Tesco Value cereal post, a Facebook account revealed: “When my mum died in 2014, we found a Fray Bentos pie with a use by date of 1985!”

How about jam that was five decades old? “When we cleared out my Uncles house back in 2006, we found a jar of Jam from 1950 which was open and recently used,” shared this person.

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One member admitted: “I remember finding a Tesco value strawberry whip that was 5 years out of date. I opened it, mixed it with milk and I ate it. It was perfectly fine.”

“I clear out my mums cooking shelf like 3 years ago and found a jar of mince pudding from 1992 lol,” wrote a Facebook user.

Let us know if you have found any unusually old items of food in the kitchen recently.