Information About Food Expiration & Sell-By Dates

By Keren Kipfer


Every time you purchase a drink or food product, do you read the labels and possibly consider looking into important details such as expiration dates? For many of us, buying a product near its expiration date is not to be considered, but often these dates are misunderstood. Here are a few quick facts that might help you know what food is edible near and passed these dates.

It is always noteworthy for consumers to look at expiration dates for several important items such as foods, drinks and medicines. However, before you throw away any of these items that have a date that has already passed, try to ponder on one truth: that sometimes dates are not truly expiration dates and the quality of the item is still fine days and weeks or even months after this printed date. There are a few cases where the government sets the expiration date and these dates truly are meant to be taken literally. Items where you need to truly follow the expiration dates are baby foods and formulas which have dates that are put into place to ensure the safety of your children.

Perishable products like milk, beef and other meat products, poultry as well as seafood have what is known as a sell-by dates. The stores must sell these perishables by this date, but they are generally still perfectly able to sit in your fridge for a couple of days and still be used. You can even freeze meats that are a day or two passed the sell-by dates. If everything looks and tastes fresh, the food is probably still ok to consume.

"Best if used by" or "use by" dates can be found used for shelf-stable items like your typical canned foods, boxed pastas, mayonnaise or any other similar items. The manufacturers of such products have these details to inform consumers that they are at the peak of freshness prior to that date. This doesn't mean that a canned good with a month-old expiration date is bad; it simply means the quality might be reduced. As for the doubt that may still be lingering there on whether to consume or not a certain product, your sense of smell and taste will still hold the best judgment.

If you are looking into machines responsible for printing these expiration dates then you need to know that these are called id coders or id printers. Even batch numbers and serial numbers for products are printed by such machines, which work quickly and use fast-drying inks that adhere to many different package materials. There are many brands of id coders, such as VideoJet coders, Maxima coders, Domino coders and Willett coders.

Replacement inks and make-up for these id coders are always needed by companies using coders. But you should know that making such purchase from your coder's manufacturer could be quite costly. What you need in order to save money is to find a special product id company selling generic versions of such inks. When you find them, you will delight in the fact that they sell generic versions of Domino ink, Imaje ink, Willett ink as well as other brands at great quality but at a much lower cost.




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