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Alton, Ia | I spent 18 years off-farm in food manufacturing plant management, and the simple answer is- There is no simple answer. It depends.
Predominantly, date codes are used for what they call "Lot Track and Trace". Every food manufacture MUST be able to track every single package out the door, with info as to the date absolutely, and most do shift, and many do time stamps. It's buried in the date code. What ingredients went in, what equipment, and which employees were on that line. It's all tracked.
For example, if a corn chip in a soybean oil, the oil residue will go rancid sooner than canola or palm. So use by is important, unless you want a tummy ache. OTOH, ice cream will have a 1 year use by, but it is good for years as long as it's stored appropriately. My last stint I was involved with a major expansion at an ice cream plant, they found a couple packages that had fallen behind a wall 20 years earlier and kept at -20. It was tested, perfectly safe to eat, just flavors had pretty much degraded. But it's give a use by date of 1 year for LTT.
Canned foods can probably be eaten a little while after expiration, but I would be cautious. Many of them are acidic, over time the acid could eat into the metal, ingesting metal is bad, but air entry could lead to botulism, which is really bad.
If you're stocking the prepper cellar, you need to be picky about the canned goods and crackers. Nobody said Armageddon was going to be easy. | |
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Canned food expiry date
