A woman looking at a product at a grocery store.
Open Vs Closed Expiration Dates: How To Read Food Packaging

NEWS

By ELIAS NASH
A top of a milk carton.
Since the U.S. government imposes no standards for expiration dates, labeling systems vary with products. The two main types of expiration labeling are open and closed dating.
Best Before date tag on a pack of bread.
In the case of open dating, the stamped-on date helps consumers determine a product’s quality. However, closed dating is a much different system meant to help the item’s producer.
Packs of various meats on grocery store shelves.
Open dating is used for most foods, especially perishables like meat, eggs, and dairy. It’s meant to indicate when a product is at peak quality, not when it becomes unsafe to eat.
Sell By dates on an egg carton.
“Use-By,” “Best Before,” and “Freeze-By” are open dating terms referring to the last day an item is at peak quality, and “Sell-By” is for how long stores can keep it in stock.
Expiration date printed on a can against a blue background.
Conversely, closed dating, or coded dating, is used for shelf-stable items like canned goods and indicates the date the food was made. Closed dating usually uses an MMDDYY format.
Expiration date printed on a can.
If a closed-dated label says 123123, it means the product was packaged on December 31, 2023. These labels also include a tracking code used by manufacturers to check their stocks.
Expiration date on a can.
However, with no government oversight to establish consistency, producers use their own judgment and determine expiration dates, mainly to reassure customers, not to ensure safety.
Finger pointing at a can's expiration label.
To protect their brands, manufacturers air on the conservative side when deciding expiration dates, so the printed date is often weeks ahead of when the food might actually spoil.
A man sniffing a bottle.
To avoid throwing out and thus wasting perfectly good food, consumers should determine if the food has expired with the help of their own eyes and nose, not a stamped-on date.