I bought frozen BBQ eel and the best before date says LJ349. What does this mean?

J3 is the 3rd month that starts with J so it's July. 49 is the 49th day of July so August 18th. easy peasy

Late June in the year 349

Actually I have no idea, it's an odd bunch of initials

It might be the Julian date (I have no idea where the name comes from) which is just basically January 1st is 001, December 31st is 365, and the rest of the year is between. So this would be around December 15th.

We used it for food expirations on some things at the convenience store I used to work at.

Former grocery manager here. There are companies that purposely sell these weird cryptic date formats. I would always need to go look for their certain code to figure out what it translates to. I can't remember why either other than it's not normal and we just dealt with it.

Some uk supermarkets have started dropping the use by date in favour of codes like this. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45786012 The article says it’s to reduce waste and that staff will have special training to know when to bin stuff. I imagine the training is in how to read the codes.

I mean... Expiration dates are mostly a lie anyway. Just do the sniff test, probably fine.

But, on topic, I do appreciate the post since that's weird.

Companies are allowed to do this in some nations as long as they also distribute the cipher to grocers. For example, literally every chewing tobacco I've seen. This leads to higher sales because lazy employees don't take the time to check the printout and remove expired product.

At least it doesn't say LV426...

Did you know you can store smoked salmon at room temp pretty much indefinitely in an unopened package?

Food storage has gotten really good, all the tricks of smoke, sugar or salt of our ancestors with now radiation sterilization and other cool tricks with science.
All that to say. It's probably fine. You just bought it and I'm sure this was made to last as long as it can as reliably as it can so that they don't lose money.

Most best buy dates are just made up anyways and not based on much. Check for gas build up, a weird odor, extreme discoloration, or foreign objects or growths. That will get you through pretty much every rotten food type without having to taste it.

That's said, where are you shopping that has a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, French, and robot codes?

Not sure about LJ... but 349 could simply refer to the day number. Day 349 this year is December 14th.

This is using the Julian calendar (standard calendar for most things)... maybe the J in LJ?

I'm no expert but I think that's the planet from Alien and Aliens.

Live Journal user id 349

In order to determine the best before you'll need to solve the emo's riddle.

It refers to the year of our Lord J-town 349.

That looks like a failure to regulate and standardize expiration date format which ultimately benefits corporations and fucks the consumer.

It's best before the amount of time it takes to do 349 Oh Long Johnsons.

I looked around the packaging for other clues as suggested by another Lemming but I didn't find anything. In fact I found the same thing printed on the front.

Julian date format, Dec 14th (349th day of the year)

The LJ prefix is some manufacturer code, not relevant to exp date

Maybe it’s “Lichtjahr”? So as long as you stay within 3*10^15km of earth you should be fine 👍

Looks like a Julian date. 349 would reference the 349th day of the year. So assuming this year 2024, it would be best by December 14. Normally it would have the year at the end of the 3 digits (3494) for BB Dec 14 2024. Best guess I have. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

OP! Can you please let us know:

1. If you found more clues?
2. Decided to eat it? And if so, how you are doing!?!

Thanks!!

Stands for “Alan please add best by date”

It means:

"Take it back to the retailer and get your money back."

Or:

"Eat me for a personal food poisoning experience."

Take your pick..

This may be No Stupid Questions, but there sure are a lot of stupid answers.

Do you plan to take a flight at some stage?

It says "meilleur avant" so I think LJ is "Lundi-Jeudi"

Would LJ be the year code and 349 the Julian date?

in the year of our Lord Jesus 349

Chinese dates have two word years that equate to animals (see the options on this date converter), but they don't have an 'L' sound, so none of them are going to start with that. No clue unless it's a typo.

L is probably the factory code J could be the number 9, if A=0, so the last digit of the year. So a guess would be Dec 14th 2029. Which seems like a long way off. Unless A=1, that means J=0, so 2020 and it's expired, but maybe 2030.

"Best Before" doesn't mean anything. Only "Use By" is an indicator of expired food.

Maybe December 2022. But who knows.

Damn this one is tough my best guess LJ is like how the manufacturer tracks it internally or something like that and the 349 could be like eat before the 349th day of that year. Again this is just a guess probably contact the manufacturer to be 100% clear what that means.

This site says to use it in 1-2 months: https://rivieraseafoodclub.com/products/unagi-freshwater-eel

As many have said, the numerical digits probably refer to a Julian calendar date. Also to consider, some products list the pack date rather than the expiration date. So it’s possible these were packed in December and are already “expired”.

Year 349 since the return of Late Jesus.

It's about 500 years in the future I think

I mean, is there something to the right? I think not because the français is below so I guess good luck. I'd personally eat it unless you bought it months ago.