Finding expired food products very often

[Andrea.dispe]

I leave at BLCU in BEIJING since 1 month and I'm curious if it is normal to find inside supermarket a lot of expired products. Usually I find a lot of them but still didn't ger if there is something that I should know about the expiration food products system or it us common.

[roddy]

There is something you should know - very often Chinese products are marked with the date of production, not the date of expiry. That doesn't mean you won't find out of date stuff on the shelves sometimes, but if you're finding a LOT, that's probably why.

[drencrom]

How do you know the products are expired? Where are you getting this information?

[Cat Jones]

Milk is usually marked with the date of production, not the expiry date.

[Understudy]

I was very interested in this reverse method when I first arrived - I believe that the Chinese, being the practical consumers that they typically are, prefer to judge for themselves whether or not a product has expired, as opposed to being told.

[Andrea.dispe]

yes that was I guessed but I forgot to write that in all product I saw there where 2 dates printed. One more recent and another one not so recent. Still the more recent one was already expired. For example, I attach here an image of the unique expired product that I didn't throw away yet just because I forgot in my pantry.

http://goo.gl/TeHDy

As you can see the dates is one day after the other and it is some kind of sweet bread. One should be the production date and the other one? maybe the date the product has been relased by the shop? it doesn't make sense.

If we put aside that it tasted so bad, I bought that the 13th December. How does it work? There should be written how many days it is edible or something else?

[gougou]

Yes, indeed most products will tell you how long they can be stored. Try looking for 保质期 on the packaging.

[skylee]

Re the picture at #6. The date 20121203 is the date of production (生産日期), and the date 20121204 is the date that the product is released for sale （上市日期). Neither is the expiry date.

[roddy]

It doesn't taste bad because it's out of date. It tastes bad because it's Chinese supermarket bread, and you're used to lovely Italian bakery bread. It'll take you months to find acceptable bread. And then they'll stop making it.

[liuzhou]

It'll take you months to find acceptable bread. And then they'll stop making it.

More likely, they will have stopped making it the day before you get there.

[Andrea.dispe]

Ok thx all for your advices!