Get Expiration Date: 04/30/2019

The code has two parts with the first 3 digits signifying the day of the year and the last digit signifying the year. Y will be 0 through 9 (0 for 2000, 2010, 2020 for example, and 9 for 2009, 2019, 2029, etc.)

To answer the question “What is date coding“ is easy. It is simply the marking of each product after production with a date. To tell you where date coding comes from, why it happens, and why consumers or businesses should worry about it, is an altogether more complex matter.

The date codes are generally in four digit codes. The first two numbers cover the year and the second two are for the week they were manufactured. So the example below shows the four numbers 8332 - made in 1983 in the 32nd week of that year.

If the Julian number has seven digits, the first four will refer to the year. If it only has five digits, the year will be the first two digits. In a seven-digit Julian date format, “2018” will appear as “2018,” but in a five-digit Julian date format, it will appear as “18.”

There's no blanket process for setting expiration dates. Instead, food manufacturers and retailers determine these dates as they see fit. They may take many factors into consideration. They'll think about the characteristics of the particular food as well as its packaging.

An expiration date is the last day that a consumable product such as food or medicine will be at its best quality, ing to the manufacturer.

Match an all-numerical code with a “month, day, year” sequence. If the code you're reading is comprised of 6 digits, it most likely is a month-day-year code. Read these codes as MMDDYY, where “MM” refers to the month, “DD” refers to the date, and “YY” refers to the year.