Check the Label for Expired Candy
The Consumerist had a great article yesterday on how to determine if M&M’s, Mars or Hershey candy is expired:
“For M&Ms and Mars candy, there’s usually a 10 digit code of numbers and letters, but you only need to worry about the first three. The first number is the last number in the year (8 means 2008, 7 means 2007, etc) and the next two numbers stand for the week of the year (so, a number like 804 would be the fourth week of 2008: February 2008).
“For Hershey’s candy, there’s a 2 character code for the month and year. The year is like the other code, with the number being the last number in the year, the second character is a letter that represents the month. A = January, B = February, and so on. So a code like 9A would mean that the candy expires January of 2009.”
I grabbed a bag of M&M’s to check this out, and as you can see in the picture above this one apparently expired in December 2007, which is lame because I bought it in February 2008. But as several commenters in the original post pointed out, though, expired candy likely won’t make you sick, it’ll just taste off. I haven’t noticed anything funky about it so I think I’ll live!
Tags: Chocolate, Chocolate Ideas, Chocolate Links, Chocolate News, Chocolate Pictures, Chocolate Trivia, Chocolate-Products, expiration code, expired, expired candy, hershey, M&Ms, mars candyRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Chocolate, Chocolate Ideas, Chocolate Links, Chocolate News, Chocolate Pictures, Chocolate Products, Chocolate Trivia
4 opinions for Check the Label for Expired Candy
Cherie
Apr 10, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I never knew this! I always thought candy could sit forever. Like Twinkies.
Sucks that you bought a two-month old bag of candy, tho!
Elizabeth
Apr 11, 2008 at 8:38 am
Thank you so much for this!
6th Floor Blogger
Apr 11, 2008 at 11:04 am
It’s getting better, but you have so many products like that that are just sold ’stale’ because no one cares to look or think about expiration dates for things like chocolate. Usually 2 months or so is no big deal ,but it’s sometimes much worse.
Beer is the same way. Have you ever had a beer that tasted not as good as you are used to? Beer is generally meant to be consumed within a year of bottling.
r
Nov 19, 2008 at 1:20 pm
For M&Ms it is the week/year it was made. It expires the year after that.
You can check by getting a bag in the gift shop at the factory — they let you see them bring the bags right off the line.
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