A food bank has asked people to check product sell-by dates after a packet of filter coffee more than 26 years old was handed in.
Staff at the Kingsbridge Food Bank, in Devon, have highlighted a number of out-of-date items recently handed in.
They included a jar of couscous which expired in 2015, a Christmas pudding that went off in 2020, and the coffee which was best before July 1995.
Posting on Facebook, Sue Durant, who helps run a collection point where people can donate items for the food bank, said: "We are extremely grateful for the donations to Kingsbridge Foodbank.
"However please can you check the dates, and also only donate unopened food.
"There were donations left this weekend that were more than 26 years out of date."
Project boss Gerrie Messer told the BBC items were "tricky" to dispose of.
She said: "If they're not filtered out by the supermarket, who actually have stations in their store, it is really tricky for us to dispose of it as we don't have a proper waste collection we can put it into.
"My lovely volunteers usually end up taking them home with them.
"In date and unopened, that is all we really ask for."
She said it was not the only time they had been given out-of-date items.
"Last year we had a tinned fruit cake handed in which looked old.
"It had no date on it, but we searched for the company that made the whiskey for it and found it went out of business in 1996."
