In our recent article “When to eat and when to throw out ?”, we covered some important guidelines regarding how long certain food products are safe to eat. Although many products now sport the best before and consume by dates directly on the package, canned products follow in a different set of footsteps. Most cans will be stamped with a coded packaging date that looks like a series of numbers and/or letters, but they differ from one company to another and should not be mistaken as best-before dates.

Here in Canada, some manufacturers stamp the lid with a code that includes the production date, and that can be interpreted by consumers. The first digit, a letter, denotes the month the product was made (For example: A is for January, B is for February, C is for March and so on). The second digit, a number, denotes the year the product was made (For example: 8 stands for 2008, 9 stands for 2009 and so on).

When in doubt, consumers are advised to call the manufacturer. When I looked into this issue a little more closely I found out that Canadian Government regulations do not require packaged-on or best-before dates on such foods. Only foods that have a “durable life” of 90 days or less must have a best-before or consume-by date, including fresh meats, eggs and sole-source-nutrition products such as liquid meal-replacements or power bars. Apparently, the general population is ok with this since very few complaints have been heard by the government on placing dates on cans? Amazing!

I’d be curious to hear how other developed countries regulate the canned foods with respect to best-before dates? But I’m almost certain the position is similar to our code style here in Canada.

So in the mean time, be like your local grocery store stock boy and place new cans in the back, gradually pushing older cans to the front.