The Consumerist has a neat tip for figuring out how old a candy bar is:

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’ve been wondering about all of the numbers that are stamped on food packages for a while. Some are obvious, like expiration dates, but I dislike the idea of my Nutrageous wrapper knowing something that I don’t.

This entry was posted Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Secrets. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.