De-coding Aldi fruit and veg dates?

Emuchops

I am a huge fan of Aldi, but I don't like the way their 'best before' dates on fruit and veg seem to be in some sort of code. I bought a bag of carrots yesterday, which have gone slimy already. Can anyone shed some light on deciphering the codes so that I can make sure I get the freshest stuff in future?
Thanks.

honeythewitch

Emuchops wrote: »

I am a huge fan of Aldi, but I don't like the way their 'best before' dates on fruit and veg seem to be in some sort of code. I bought a bag of carrots yesterday, which have gone slimy already. Can anyone shed some light on deciphering the codes so that I can make sure I get the freshest stuff in future?
Thanks.

I don't know about the codes, but I lift the box out of the way and get it from the one underneath which is usually fresher.

molerat

There is no "best by" but the production date code is week and day. The celery I bought last week was 2404 and mushrooms 2403.

Emuchops

molerat wrote: »

There is no "best by" but the production date code is week and day. The celery I bought last week was 2404 and mushrooms 2403.

Thanks Molerat. That's a great help.

Lynsey

molerat wrote: »

There is no "best by" but the production date code is week and day. The celery I bought last week was 2404 and mushrooms 2403.

I believe the 24 is the week of the year (24th week of 2014) and the 03 and 04 is the day of the week.
Monday 01
Tuesday 02
etc, etc.

It's more for stock rotation and I'm not to sure if the dates/days are sell by dates/display dates??

Lynsey

catwoman73

You need to take the carrots out of the plastic bag ASAP and they will last much longer (keep in the fridge). Your carrots are going off due to the excess moisture in the plastic bag. The state of freshness on fresh fruit and veg depends a lot on storage conditions and needs to be judged on appearance and level of ripeness, rather than some arbitary date.

BBE dates with fruit and veg are irrelevant and I think supermarkets are phasing them out to reduce waste. Things like carrots, apples and onions may have been stored for months before being packaged for sale. So slapping a date of a few days on them at that point is ridiculous.

I have an apple in my fridge that is that last of a 4 pack that I bought as a YS over two weeks ago from M&S. It is still fine and I will eat it within the next few days. It was probably grown last summer and picked last autumn and then cold stored until a few weeks ago.

I also have some kiwi fruit bought at about the same time that have been kept at room temperature and are ripening very very slowly - the date on these was a week or two ago, and yet even now they are not ripe enough to eat.

Emuchops

catwoman73 wrote: »

You need to take the carrots out of the plastic bag ASAP and they will last much longer (keep in the fridge). Your carrots are going off due to the excess moisture in the plastic bag. The state of freshness on fresh fruit and veg depends a lot on storage conditions and needs to be judged on appearance and level of ripeness, rather than some arbitary date.

BBE dates with fruit and veg are irrelevant and I think supermarkets are phasing them out to reduce waste. Things like carrots, apples and onions may have been stored for months before being packaged for sale. So slapping a date of a few days on them at that point is ridiculous.

I have an apple in my fridge that is that last of a 4 pack that I bought as a YS over two weeks ago from M&S. It is still fine and I will eat it within the next few days. It was probably grown last summer and picked last autumn and then cold stored until a few weeks ago.

I also have some kiwi fruit bought at about the same time that have been kept at room temperature and are ripening very very slowly - the date on these was a week or two ago, and yet even now they are not ripe enough to eat.

I am aware of how to store carrots, but thanks anyway.
It goes without saying that some fruit and veg remain perfectly edible long after their so-called 'BBE' date, however I like to check 'BBE' dates as they are a useful tool when trying to gauge which is the freshest produce, hence my request for help with Aldi's 'code' system.

PatCass

There's a Free App you can download now called Lidaldi which tells you todays code and codes for the last week so you can work it out really easily

search for Lidaldi in the play store, i'm not sure if they have an iphone version or not

compmad1

PatCass wrote: »

There's a Free App you can download now called Lidaldi which tells you todays code and codes for the last week so you can work it out really easily

search for Lidaldi in the play store, i'm not sure if they have an iphone version or not

I thought it was week 4 this week. That's what Google calendar says. This app says it is week 5?

compmad1

Think app is wrong. Found this 'ALDI Best Before Code Cracker' Says same as Google:

http://www.carrion.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ALDI-Best-Before-Code-Cracker.pdf

compmad1

Going to Aldi and Lidl tomorrow. Will check out which is correct and let you know.