Hidden date info on snack-food item??
On Saturday I bought two containers of a snack product called "Squez'N'Bites" at a Zellers store in Calgary. When I got them home I decided to immediately empty out and reuse one of the containers as a disposable candy jar for the office (it's a clear plastic cannister with a bright red top that looks sort of like an apothecary type jar.) So I remove all the labels from the cannister, and lo-and-behold underneath a separate Zellers price tag is an inkjet imprint reading "06JL19 AD78". While of course I cannot be absolutely certain, the first part of that sure looks to me like a reference to July 19, 2006.
Nowhere on the product labelling is there any reference to "best before" and I have no idea what kind of shelf life would be normal for this type of product (semi-liquid gelatinous blobs individually packed in little foil-sealed cups -- one of the Zellers employees who saw me looking at them told me they're "just like Jell-O shots" except for the absence of alcohol.) The product is made in Taiwan and from what I see on the 'net it is apparently marketed in various countries around the world by various licensee/importers. The Canadian importer (as identified on the product labeling) appears to be out of business judging from the largely disfunctional state of their website, so I'm speculating maybe Zellers picked up a bunch of their inventory on the cheap.
Any thoughts on this? Would you buy this product if you could see that production imprint which appears to suggest this batch is around 4 years old? Anyone know what kind of rules/laws apply to date labeling on foods in Canada?
Nowhere on the product labelling is there any reference to "best before" and I have no idea what kind of shelf life would be normal for this type of product (semi-liquid gelatinous blobs individually packed in little foil-sealed cups -- one of the Zellers employees who saw me looking at them told me they're "just like Jell-O shots" except for the absence of alcohol.) The product is made in Taiwan and from what I see on the 'net it is apparently marketed in various countries around the world by various licensee/importers. The Canadian importer (as identified on the product labeling) appears to be out of business judging from the largely disfunctional state of their website, so I'm speculating maybe Zellers picked up a bunch of their inventory on the cheap.
Any thoughts on this? Would you buy this product if you could see that production imprint which appears to suggest this batch is around 4 years old? Anyone know what kind of rules/laws apply to date labeling on foods in Canada?