Displaying expiry or best before dates on your storefront

Freshly can show each product's expiry or best-before date on your storefront. It saves the date to a Shopify metafield, and you display that metafield in your theme, either with the theme editor (no code) or by adding a Liquid snippet. This feature is available on paid Freshly plans.

Step 1: Turn on expiry date metafields in Freshly

1. In Freshly, go to Preferences.
2. In Expiry date on storefront, check Enable display of expiry dates on product pages.
3. Click Save. Preferences aren't saved automatically.

Within a few minutes, Freshly saves dates to these metafields and keeps them updated as batches change:

Both are date metafields. If a product or variant has no in-stock batch with an expiry date, Freshly removes the metafield and nothing is shown.

Step 2: Show the date in your theme

Choose one option.

Option A: Theme editor (no code)

This works with themes that support dynamic sources (Online Store 2.0 themes).

First, give Shopify a definition for the Freshly metafield so the theme editor can find it:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Metafields and metaobjects.
2. Click Products.
3. Click View unstructured metafields (or View all > View unstructured metafields).
4. Click Add definition next to freshly.expiry_date  .
5. Enter a name, such as "Expiry date".
6. Click Select type and choose Date.
7. Click Save, review the results, then click Save definition.

To show variant-level dates, repeat these steps under Variants.

Then add the date to your product page:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, find your theme, and click Edit theme.
2. Open a product template.
3. In the section that shows the product's title and price (often called "Product information"; names vary by theme), click Add block and choose a text block.
4. In the block's text setting, type a label such as "Best before:", then click the Connect dynamic source icon and choose the Expiry date metafield.
5. Drag the block to where you want it, for example, under the price, and click Save.

Option B: Liquid code

Use this if your theme doesn't support dynamic sources, or if you want full control over the date format.

If your theme has a custom Liquid block (names vary by theme), add one to the product information section in the theme editor and paste the code there. Otherwise, edit the theme code:

1. Duplicate your theme as a backup. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, then use the menu icon (...) next to your theme.
2. From the same menu, click Edit code.
3. Open the section or snippet that renders your product page's price. File names vary by theme. Ask your theme developer if you're not sure.
4. Paste one of the snippets below where you want the date to appear, then click Save.

Product-level date (earliest date across all variants):

{% assign expiry = product.metafields.freshly.expiry_date.value %}
{% if expiry != blank %}
  <p>Expiry date: {{ expiry | date: "%Y/%m/%d" }}</p>
{% endif %}

Date for the selected variant:

{% assign expiry = product.selected_or_first_available_variant.metafields.freshly.expiry_date.value %}
{% if expiry != blank %}
  <p>Expiry date: {{ expiry | date: "%Y/%m/%d" }}</p>
{% endif %}

You can change "Expiry date:" to any wording, such as "Best before:". To change the date format, edit "%Y/%m/%d"  . For example, "%d/%m/%Y"   shows 31/12/2026 and "%B %d, %Y"   shows December 31, 2026.

Some themes update the price without reloading the page when a shopper picks a different variant. In those themes, the variant date may not change until the page reloads.

Troubleshooting

• No date shows. Check that the product has an in-stock batch with an expiry date in Freshly, that the setting is saved, and that you're on a paid plan. Then wait a few minutes and refresh the product page.
• The product shows the wrong variant's date. The product-level metafield always shows the earliest date across all variants. Use the variant snippet instead.

Need help with setup? Email us at hello@getfreshly.io.