How Do You Read Soda Cans’ Expiration Dates?
Most soda manufacturers print the expiration date in readable format, including the month, day and year, on the bottom of each can. Some soda manufacturers use a manufacturing date code. Artificially-sweetened soda should typically be consumed within 3 months of manufacture. Sugar-sweetened drinks last longer.
Unfortunately, there is no standard coding method. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo use codes in the format MMM DD YY, where MMM is an abbreviation of the month, DD is the day of the month and YY is the year. Dr Pepper Snapple Group cans typically have the manufacture code printed on the bottom of their cans. There are two common formats. The first code has the calendar month in single letter format, using the letters A-M and excluding the letter I; the next two figures represent the year, and the final three letters represent the day of the year (001-365). The second type of manufacture code uses the MM DDD Y format, where DDD represents the day of the year.
