Decades-old jar of sauce donated to food bank

A manager said the jar was older than some of their volunteers

A food bank has asked people to be "a bit more careful when donating" after they received a jar of cooking sauce with an expiry date of 1998.

The jar of Mr Ben's dauphinoise gratin sauce was among donations given to the Sunderland and County Durham Food Bank in Hendon.

A warehouse volunteer noticed it because the label looked faded and the contents appeared "a little grey".

Food supply manager Jonathan Conlon said there was no chance of the sauce, which is at least 25 years old, ending up on someone's plate.

'This is the record'

Volunteers at the food bank's warehouse were surprised when they found a jar of Uncle Ben's 'NEW' Gratins Dauphinoise Cheese & Onion sauce, with a best before date of June 1998, had been donated.

Mr Conlon said: "We get things that are a couple of years out of date and occasionally at harvest time, for example, we get things that people have cleared out from the back of the cupboards.

"So it's not unusual to get the odd donation that is out of date, maybe a year or two, but this is the record."

It is also not the first unusable item of food they have received.

Mr Conlon said: "Sometimes we get half-eaten packets of biscuits or cakes where, maybe, somebody has tried it themselves and thought better of it.

"Thank you for donating, you know, we rely on donations, but if people can donate things that they would like to receive themselves, that's probably the best rule of thumb."