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The UK system seems to be slightly easier to understand. Every item of food has \"Use By End \" printed on it. By law.Any questions?
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@VereKlimchuck: Companies are picking up on that in the states, thankfully. Some still have that \"sell by\" nonsense, insisting you still have a couple days to use it after the date but I wont play that guessing game.
Egg Beaters, a staple of my breakfast, switched over to the \"Use By\" date. Why everyone else hasn't, beats me.
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This is awesome.
Thanks Brian, and thanks to everyone for explaining the Julian date thing.
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And why can't manufacturers put the expiration date in a common format (mm/dd/yy)?
@socialSTD: @socialSTD: @Rob Weddle: But wait, you mean if I wanted to know what the weather was, I could look outside!?
Still, you wouldn't know how the produce looked on the inside until you bought it, took it home, and cut it open. My grandma always has problems with avocados. Half the time, she cuts them open and they're nasty inside.
Also, you can't - or you're not supposed to - open a box of cookies or crackers, or any other product, and check out how they look.
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@socialSTD: they would lose sales. if you cant read it you dont know its went bad and you buy it anyway.
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@JohnDeere: they would lose sales. if you cant read it you dont know its went bad and you buy it anyway.
Bingo. How many people are going to make the effort to take a spoilt $2 product back to the store the next time they shop? And how many of them are going to do it within the usual refund period, within 14 days of purchase? They're betting on people just throwing it out.
\"You bought this three weeks ago! You should have brought it sooner, now we can't refund the money. It doesn't matter that you don't shop here that often.\" I've heard that load of crap once or twice, even on products that weren't past their due date but were \"off\" (e.g. eggs).
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@P_Smith: That would be a point for stores not to do it - but they have no control over it, it's manufacturers, whoa re out of the process by then.
@JohnDeere: How would they lose sales? Once the product is on the shelf the manufacturer sold the product and it is up to the retailer to sell the product. The manufacturer does not want the retailer to easily have their staff determine what is out of date and what is not! The manufacturer does not take the expired products back so it is the retailer who will lose if the product is not sold.
@thrlsekr: I don't know that they don't want the store to know either - I mean, one could argue that if the store did know, they would dump that inventory and buy more sooner...of course the other side of that argument is pretty compelling too
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@socialSTD: That would make too much sense/be too simple. I suppose those at the top have to justify working in an extension of the \"food service\" industry by making things more complex.
This just makes me wonder how much food is wasted because of these complex systems of timekeeping. It would make more sense to put the date in hexidecimal or binary than to use yet another system (that's not taught in school).
This just chaps my ass! The more I learn, the more I understand that primary and high schools don't teach but a small fraction of the shit you actually need to know when you get out in the working world! They don't even give you a good foundation (even less now than when I went to school). /rant
True, but it's still easier to tell retailers that the code is in mm/dd/yy or dd/mm/yy format. That way you won't need a decoder ring to figure out if your Ovaltine is expired or not.
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@CityGuySailing: don't they do DD/MM/YYYY in Europe? Makes a lot more sense than doing MM/DD/YYYY...
@snowburnt: Actually, using dd/mm/yyyy would be more confusing. You would wind up with foods that expire in different months lumped together as in 1/1/2009,1/2/2009,1/3/2009, and 11/2/2009. Compared to 1/1/2009,2/1/2009,2/11/2009, and 3/1/2009. Putting the month first makes more sense especially when sorting by computer, although yyyy/mm/dd would be best.
@snowburnt: don't they do DD/MM/YYYY in Europe? Makes a lot more sense than doing MM/DD/YYYY...
Going YY/DD/MM or MM/DD/YY makes as much sense as a watch that lists time by hours/seconds/minutes.
@CityGuySailing: This is true, but there's an ISO standard format for dates for a reason. (YYYY-MM-DD, which has advantages including being able to be sorted lexically as well as being unambiguous.) Unfortunately, 10 characters is a lot of space to take up on a food label just for a date.
@ChristopherDavis: This is true, but there's an ISO standard format for dates for a reason. (YYYY-MM-DD, which has advantages including being able to be sorted lexically as well as being unambiguous.) Unfortunately, 10 characters is a lot of space to take up on a food label just for a date.
So what's wrong with printing six characters (YYYYMM)? Four characters might cause ambiguity for the current two decades we're in, but aside from that, four characters is within 30 days of accuracy, good enough for most packaged foods.
@coren: Or YYMM - I seriously doubt we've got food to last 100 years.
As I said the first time but you didn't pick up on, four characters could cause ambiguity in the current two decades. Does 0809 mean September 2008 or August 2009? Six characters would avoid that in the years 2000-2016, the rough shelf life of canned or dried goods.
I once worked at World Market and we had a 6 inch binder with each vendor on a page with keys to all the different codes. What I did learn was it was up with the company to work with the vendors in order to get them to put a date on the item as opposed to a code. They did a pretty good job, in the 4 years that I worked there almost all their vendors changed from codes to dates. These were bigger brands, too, such as Cadbury, Lindt, and Ghiradelli.
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Remind me to stock up on \"Beef Hash\" for the coming apocalypse. That shit's got some shelf life, jeebus.
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Someone needs to step in and get this in order. FDA? FTC? FBI?!
About dates: My point being, that even across countries, date formats vary. Corporations can hardly be faulted for having a code of their own that THEY understand (and train their personnel up to) across international boundaries. Disclaimer: I worked for a mega-large food company in the 80's.
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@CityGuySailing:
Not only that, but you can write \"Jun 27 2008\" in a variety of different orders and it will always mean the exact same thing.
That and it's only one letter larger than all-numerics.
@Xkeeper: Yes, but that only works for English-speaking countries. Every language has its own words for the months of the year.
@CityGuySailing: I don't know of any date format in common use that has a Julian date in it. When was the last time someone in any country referred to a Julian date in a typical conversation? \"Was last Friday the 315th?\"
12252008 and 25122008 I can understand (Dec 25th), but a Julian date? WHY?
@lannister80: There are three reasons that I can think of to use Julian dates.
- It makes the math easier for humans, when they're trying to figure out how old something is. Just find today's Julian date and subtract. None of this \"thirty days hath September\" stuff.
- It's easier for equipment to generate. Just increment once per day until you hit 365 or 366. Not such a big deal now, but once upon a time these date stamps were generated by mechanical counters, and adding logic to handle months of varying lengths would have greatly complicated things.
- It takes up less space on the label.
@Orv: I see 2 and 3 - but 1? That's an argument for the other side - you'd have to know how many days hath September to calculate a Julian date. A simple date of the year would make that easier
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@CityGuySailing: ... which is precisely why an international standards group came up with an international standard date format for this sort of thing.
@ZekeSulastin: That international standard is ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). It even supports ordinal dates (YYYY-DDD) which are incorrectly referred to as Julian dates in this article.
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@CityGuySailing: Different countries have different labeling requirements for food. They can get THAT right because it's mandated by law: why is it all of a sudden so hard to localize a date to an area based on this data?
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@CityGuySailing: I can understand using an internal code, but by asking someone to use the specific day on the Julian Calendar? at least print the expiration date in an easier to read format, [insert companies here]
I'd rather try my luck with the labels than read that chart. Holy sheet mayne wtf.
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@OprahBabb: Same.
Usually it's not too difficult to read the labels, but lately I have spent a lot of time turning products every which way to see what combo of numbers is the expiration date...It would also help if they PRINTED the date instead of embossing it (or whatever that's called) on the white part of a cardboard package so you have to find the right angle in order to read it...
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where is the key for Month Code #2?
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Honestly, I think a lot of this comes from using old equipment and trying to squeeze as much as possible in as few characters. At the plant I work at, we only have 8-digit stamps at most lines. We use a format like 2008DE30, and that's stamped near a pre-printed area where it says \"Best Before\". Not too confusing.. but I can definitely understand the \"that's the way we've always done it\" mentality. We got new printers on a few of our lines which are far less limited. We could write a few full sentences on the side of the box if we wanted to. What do you think we do? 2008DE30, of course, because that's the way we've always done it. It's a lot less painful to just keep doing what you're doing, than it is to start putting in all the paperwork, getting all the sales people involved (ugh! sales people), etc, etc. Yeah, exceptional organizations have better cultures to handle change, but most organizations are not exceptional.
Want help with decoding expiration dates on food containers? I have a better tip:
Stop buying processed food.
See this apple? It's red, crisp, firm. Still edible. Soft, brown, stinky? Expired.
@Rob Weddle: I don't exactly disagree with that comment. In fact, most of the time I completely agree. However, I live somewhere cold and can be snowed in for days or potentially weeks. Its pretty hard to get a fresh apple in the middle of nowhere when there are no usable roads. What should I do? Buy fresh when I can and then process the food myself so it will last longer like people did 100 years ago? Still has to be processed to last more than a couple days. If I'm picky about what I buy I don't see any reason I should need to. Just because its in a can doesn't mean its bad for you.
So you're suggesting that we milk our own cows, producing our own cheeses and other dairy products, slaughter our own meat, etc?
I looked at the calendar today, and I could swear it said \"December 31, 2008,\" not \"December 31, 1461.\"
*All* food is \"processed,\" not all food is processed in the same way. Your apple, for instance, was likely coated with a thin layer of wax to ensure a longer shelf life.
@Rob Weddle: Wait a minute, this seems less like helpful advice and more like...preaching! Nah, I must just be cranky this morning and reading into things. Surely you wouldn't do that to us before noon.
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Wouldn't Sour Cream have a \"Best After\" date?
Those amongst you that have never been in a food warehoure or shipping depot ask why dates are not standardized. I would assume that many of you have some form of college education. That is NOT the case for the workers in the warehouses (for the most part). A Julian date makes the math simpler - and STILL mistakes happen. The dates on the cans, boxes, and crates are not PRIMARILY for the consumers, but for the sorting and picking in the warehouses and depots. The guys in there try to ship out the LEAST fresh off the manufacturing lines to get it out of their inventories and into the warehouses of the stores, and then their warehouse workers try to get it onto the trucks to the stores before the expirations run out as well.
As I posted earlier, I swear the calendar said \"2008\" and not \"1408.\"
We have computers to handle this. They'll tell you everything up to and including from where, exactly, a pallet should be pulled in order to remove the oldest product.
And why are manufacturers printing \"made on\" dates instead of \"expires on\" dates? You don't need to do any math whatsoever when one product expires \"2009-07-06\" and another expires \"2013-03-18.\" You start from the left, and whichever one has a lower number first wins.
@RvLeshrac: only a guess, but they might want \"made on\" dates in case of recalls, they could narrow down the lots or batches whatever...just a guess, don't know this for sure
The Julian Code system is no longer used on the majority of Kraft products anymore. They haven't been used since 2003 and are now only used on pizza and some baking goods like Bakers chocolate and some Lu Biscuit products made in Europe. I'm a customer service rep for Kraft Foods, the company now uses a clear Day-Month-Year format for American products and Year-Month-Day for Canadian products.
Is the year represented by the number of years after 2000 (with the tuna exception)? I notice that \"Y\" on this chart is usually 1, 2, 3, or 4. God forbid you find something in a bodega manufactured in 1999 - how would this work?
Since we're talking expiration dates, if you find a product that has an expiry date of pre-current-year, you bin it.
Also, someone should convert this into an Iphone app!
@richcreamerybutter: I'm sure it's very possible. It could scan the expiration code, read it, and turn it into a date format you're comfortable reading.
I'm assuming Y when it is a single digit represents the 1 column of years (like next year would be 9)? Then again I'm also assuming we don't have processed food with a shelf life of 10 years yet...
@coren:
You will expire several hundred, if not thousands, of years before a *properly* canned/bottled food product. Now, they won't taste particularly good by that point, but if you can get them down, they'll keep you nourished. (Imagine eating completely tasteless, likely formless, mass. Think 'mashed tofu.')
Any canned foods with \"Expiration\" dates aren't really \"canned,\" they're just \"packaged in a can.\" Lots of vegetables suffer from this malady - ostensibly, that particular packing method is used to keep them from losing more nutrients. \"Best By\" dates are more common on canned goods, given the eventual loss of flavor and texture.
From [www.hormelfoods.com] :
\"What is the shelf life of a Hormel Foods product in an unopened can?
The processing techniques utilized by Hormel Foods makes the canned product safe for use indefinitely if the product seal remains intact, unbroken and securely attached to a can that has been well maintained. It is suggested that all canned products be stored in a cool and dry environment to keep the flavor adequately preserved. For maximum flavor it is recommended that the product be used within three years of the manufacturing date. After that period of time, the product is still safe to use however, the flavor gradually declines.\"
This is why, when you make an emergency shelter or prep an emergency kit, you stock cans of SPAM, pickles, etc.
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This is one AWESOME post. No longer will I have to consult my mother [former customer service for multiple food brands] about whether or not I'll get sick from eating stuff.
It looks like the trends in date labeling can also be applied to alcohol and tobacco products, as well. Can someone confirm/correct me?
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@TaterTom:
It looks like the trends in date labeling can also be applied to alcohol and tobacco products, as well. Can someone confirm/correct me?
Off the top of my head, I know that Copenhagen has a \"made on\" date, Skoal has a \"fresh until\" date and Grizzly has some incomprehensible code. I haven't paid attention to the dates on cigarettes, but I haven't seen any that aren't coded in some way that makes it hard for humans to understand.
I *think* most bread makers have switched to expiration dates... but if not, does anyone have a current list of \"twist-tie dating\" codes?
For those who don't know: 'twist-tie' dating was/is how many sandwich breads are/were dated - different colors for different days of the week. That's why you'd see red twist-ties one day, and blue/white/yellow/black/orange/tan/etc the next. It made things easy on the bread delivery guy, since instead of having to pick up every loaf of bread on the shelf, he could simply look at the tie. If the tie was the same color as the ties on the new delivery, the ones already on the shelf would get thrown out (last week's bread).
Can eating old or outdated food actually cause illness? Sure, the nutritional values would probably be compromised, and I'm not saying that it's acceptable that we don't have a reliable way to know how long this junk has been sitting around. I'm just curious about documented cases of illness... bulging cans of botulism notwithstanding.
Many foods can, yes. Most of them aren't packaged to last forever. The only reason you don't see many stories about illness is because it is typically minor (a tummyache and throwing up isn't newsworthy), and there are signs that food has gone bad (smell, taste, large green masses).
That said, a food past the expiration date isn't necessarily going to do anything to you. My stepfather once accidentally ate some months-expired mayo on a sandwich, and aside from a comment about it tasting a little funny (which led to the expiration date check), no harm was done.
The rule of thumb is \"when in doubt, throw it out.\" In these tough economic times, however, you can safely (for SOME products, I highly recommend against eating, say, expired meat) amend that to \"when in doubt, taste a very small amount and wait several hours to see if there are any ill effects.\" I'd probably throw out most anything refrigerated after a week-past.
Four month old mayo might not hurt you once, but we didn't exactly make another sandwich with it.
Why is it legal for them to print stuff that is not easily read that could effect your health if you eat something expired? There is no magic to printing this stuff, why not just print it so we can all read it?
I have some Nabisco products that do not use the code listed above. Wheat thins with a code in the format: 30JAN07, which I take to mean january 30th 2007 they will have gone bad (wow this box is still unopened in my pantry) and Ritz with the code 05SEP08,
@aliencam:
That's the current format being used by the company. They haven't used the format on the list in over 5 years. In other words that list is VERY out of date. You'll always find the DD/MM/YY or YY/MM/DD format on Kraft/Nabisco products.
I don't understand. Expiration dates are for health and safty purposes so you don't eat a year old peanut and die! So then, WHY THE HELL are these formats so convoluted and hard to understand. I appreciate the info though.
ok so this is obviously an excel spreadsheet. please post it directly so we can use it instead of screenshots.
I believe the term ordinal date is better used in this situation than Julian Date.
The company I work for uses the following format for it's use by date:L## JulianDate Time(24H)Normally, in my experience, the L## represents the line number that the product was cooked/packaged on.
They should follow the genealogical standard (those people know dates) DD MMM YYYY. Month uses letters. eg. 01 JAN 2009
No confusion possible with a format like that.
You need to look at the whole idea of \"expiration\". It is not a magical date where the product are buying turns to crap at midnight on the appointed date. Depending on your views of a company, they put a date that will legally cover them in case something happens, their \"suggested expiration\", or to maintain quality control. Looking back ten years ago, Campbell's soup had no expiration codes, and I can pretty much guarantee you that everyone has a few cans that are years old in their cupboards. You telling me that they are expired? It never occured to you until someone printed a date on them.BTW, manufacturer's also use those codes to protect their own profits. By legitimately, or artifically, putting specific code dates on products, they are guaranteed to have a wholesaler continually buying from them. The code date ensures that a retailer cannot buy too large a quantity on a product, for fears that it will expire.If you would like to check, look at a can of Ocean Spray Cranberries. The expiration date will ALWAYS be the second or third week in November. Why? So a retailer cannot buy two year's inventory for Thanksgiving. It is just one example of many.You can only trust the code as much as you trust the manufacturer. You can only trust the product as much as you can trust the retailer to handle it properly. Don't look for some magical date to make everything all better.
To all us colorblind folk, you may not see it at first, but the examples are duo-toned ... the 'Explanation' corresponds to the red letters (that are very difficult for me and other i'm sure to see) in the example. Before someone pointed this out to me, I was scratching my head thinking, \"this chart makes it even MORE confusing\" :-P
Beer date codes are somewhat different, at least in Canada. Domestic brands have a code that starts with a letter A through M. A = January, B = February, etc.. The following two number say the day of the month brewed, followed by a third number which is the year. the numbers afterward are just brewing lines and times.
Various import brands have various ways of doing things as well. Corona Reads as mm-dd-yy, and Heineken is read as the first three numbers in the code being the day of the year (1-365) with the following number being the year.
So alcohol can be pretty obscure, but expired liquor will rarely make you sick.
Stuff in cans NEVER expires unless the can is bulging in which case its botulism and is deadly. I've eaten Progresso soup that was five years old and it was fine. It's a plot to get you to throw out perfectly good food and buy more.
A few people have said it's \"easier\" to work out how long until expiry by using ordinal dates. And, I agree, it's easier if you happen to have the current ordinal date memorised, as all shoppers are apparently expected to.
But why no go the whole hog, and use actual Julian dates? Or I suppose we could get away with reduced Julian dates and use only 5 digits, which would keep the people insisting on short codes happy, too.
That way, even if the year rolls over between you buying something and its expiration date, it's still just a matter of simple subtraction. If today is 54886, and a product has an expiry date of 54952, we know there's a good couple of months before it goes off, right? How could anyone object to this cunning plan?
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Oh wow. This is pretty handy.
Anybody know what a Julian date is though?
@shorty63136: I think an easy way to answer any question is to begin by opening a web browser, then typing into the \"Address Bar\" the following \"www.google.com\" after which you can enter any type of query you have.
Another option is wikipedia.org
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish an he'll eat for a lifetime.
@shorty63136: There is a little key at the bottom.
@shorty63136: Julian Day Numbers
by Peter Meyer
[www.hermetic.ch]
@shorty63136: The actual day of the year. Like today, December 30th, is the 364th day of the year.