Help With Whiskas Pate Best Before Date

[Kathy25]

Help
I just bought some whiskas pate 100g Premium..but can't interpret their best before date. It says BB 10181921. Bought in Canada at Walmart as our local pet store was closed for holiday. Bought Several containers but now am weary to feed it to my cat as I can't tell if it has expired.
Thanks!

 

[weebeasties]

My best guess is best by October 2018 but to be safe I would look for a 1-800 phone number on the package. They may have someone answering during the holiday.
If you just got it from Walmart, I wouldn't think the food would be very old. Walmart does such a high volume of sales. I would think it sells out and then is replenished frequently.

 

[mosimom]

Help
I just bought some whiskas pate 100g Premium..but can't interpret their best before date. It says BB 10181921. Bought in Canada at Walmart as our local pet store was closed for holiday. Bought Several containers but now am weary to feed it to my cat as I can't tell if it has expired.
Thanks!

First number is the year. 2011.
Next three numbers is the Julian date. January 18.
Next four numbers is the plant number.

 

[cheesycats]

I seriously doubt that food expired in 2011. Omg. Call Mars customer service and confirm for sure.

 

[Caspers Human]

Manufacture Dates are for the manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to help them track stock and obey the FIFO system. (First-In/First-Out)

In other words, companies don't want pallets of stock sitting in their warehouses when they could have been sold to customers. Stock that collects dust in warehouses is the same as throwing money in the garbage.

Years ago, greedy companies got the idea that if they promoted the idea of "expiration dates" they could hoodwink people into throwing away perfectly good food and buying more to replace it. It is strictly a ploy to make more money off the backs of hard working people such as yourselves.

The only time that expiration dates are important is when you are buying ultra-perishable goods like milk or eggs.
95% of the time, those dates have only a small amount of meaning to the final consumer.

The bottom line is to use common sense.
Obviously, a food item that is more than a year past its expiration date should be inspected for spoilage before eating. If an item passed its expiration date long ago, I would also suspect it and I wouldn't eat it unless it was thoroughly checked out.

You could check the food for signs of spoilage before feeding to your cat but, on the other hand, you should probably be doing that with ALL the food you eat. If the food passes the "sniff test" it should be perfectly fine to feed it to your cat.

I can say this with confidence because my brother works in a food processing plant and I work in a plant that makes packaging for food. Manufacture dates are uses by people who work in the plants on a daily basis but, for people on the outside, they mean very little, except as I mentioned above.

The great, overwhelming majority of the time expiration dates are B.S.

It is my guess that your date code means "October 2018 @ 7:21 p.m."

 

[Kathy25]

If the first number is for the year then it could be 2021 which seems more likely for this cat food with all the preservatives in it. Gave it the sniff test and it seems fine. There is another two containers that have BB 081619 212. It could also be interpreted as Month Day Year MM/DD/YY which in this case is August 16 2019 and the first one BB 101819 21 October 18 2019.
Food expiry does mean something...food does not last forever...and sometimes you will not know that it has spoiled just from looks or smell.
Will try calling the number on the package later today. Too early in the AM right now.

 

[maggiedemi]

I wish they would do a universal best by date on everything that everyone can read and understand. It's just too confusing how each company has their own way of writing it. And yes, I agree that they are important because sometimes I forget when I bought something and the best by date helps me remember and use it up on time.

 

[Caspers Human]

The dates on most food containers are designed to keep track of the the date/time when the item was MADE.

The dates are used by manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to track when the items were made/received so that companies don't end up with stocks of unsold goods sitting in warehouses.

They can also be used for traceability reasons. IF a problem with the goods is found, such as contamination, a particular unit/package can be traced back to a specific date, time and location in order to help determine whether there might be a similar problem with other packages. If a recall is needed, it is possible to say, "All packages of 'Brand-X' which have date codes within a certain range should be returned for refund or disposed of before they are eaten and, potentially, causing illness."

The only things that I can think of where the date code is important is milk, eggs, raw meats, fresh produce, certain pharmaceuticals or similar things. There are, of course, other items which are considered to be "ultra-perishable" but the great majority of items are NOT.

The concept of "expiration" came to popularity in the early 1980's when aspartame was put into diet sodas.

Aspartame can break down, over time, especially if it is exposed to heat. (Which is the main reason you can't bake or cook under heat using aspartame.) When it does, it tastes pretty icky! It tastes like bitter chemicals. (You don't need to ask me how I know that! )

Soft drink manufacturers started promoting the date codes to ensure that the Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi that you are about to drink didn't taste like cough syrup.

When soft drink companies discovered that people were throwing away perfectly good cans of soda and buying new just because they read the date code, the companies decided that they could use this knowledge to increase their profits.

Except for these and a few other ultra-perishable items, there is absolutely NO reason to throw out good food because it is a month or two past its date. Depending on the item in question, many packaged foods will still be good to eat several months or even a year or more past the date.

Date codes are important to final consumers but only in a general way.

If you have more than one container of a given brand of food in your pantry, you can use the date code to tell which one is newer or older and, by extension, which one should probably be used first. (In other words, you can use the FIFO system to manage your pantry just like manufacturers use it to manage their stocks of goods. ) You can also use the date codes when cleaning out your refrigerator or pantry to help decide whether some partially used container of food should be discarded.

I wish they would do a universal best by date on everything that everyone can read and understand.

Date codes primary use is not necessarily for the final consumer, except in a general way which I described above. Every manufacturer has a right to decide how they should code their products in a way that best suits their business purposes. It wouldn't be reasonable to force all companies to change the way they run their businesses just to suit the whims of a few individuals.

I agree that they are important because sometimes I forget when I bought something and the best by date helps me remember and use it up on time.

Ah! You use the FIFO system! Smart!
However, I don't want people to worry, needlessly, about date codes.

The date codes on the cans of cat food which were mentioned in above posts is well within their date codes and have nearly a year to go.

In no way should date codes ever be used to justify discarding perfectly good food simply because it is a week past the supposed "expiration date." Date codes were never originally intended for such a purpose.