Curious

[simont]

I just popped into my local shop, ten minutes before it shut, to buy some milk for tomorrow's breakfast. Some of the plastic milk bottles were stamped with a best-before date of ‘21 OCT’, and some with ‘23 OCT’. So far, so unremarkable; but to the right of those groups were some bottles stamped ‘22A OCT’. Huh?

Comments

[mooism.livejournal.com]

a.m.?

Australian time?

Actually we’re not sure and we’re playing safe?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

Bastards! They've sublet the upstairs of the 22nd of October!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Aha! I believe the answer to be in: http://www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/guidancenotes/labelregsguidance/foodlotmarkguid

Some food is required to be identified into a 'lot' or 'batch' so if we later discover somone poured rat poison in we can destroy the appropriate items only and not all milk ever made.

These should be of an appropriate size, and if this is larger than the number made on a day, then the best before date functions as this marking. If it's nearly, but not quite, then we append a letter.

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

22A October. Sounds like the plot for a weird metaphysical comedy film, where there's this day that most people just unknowingly sleep through, except for some reason the protagonist's kept up all night for some reason, and starts to see all of the strange and wonderful goings-on on 22A/10.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps some sort of complicated daylight saving thing?

Another question arises: do most (well, half) pints of milk have this? Or is it rare? Who can remember?

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's like 'room 12A' in hotels; someone at the milk plant has a superstition about the number 23 :)

[simont]

I did momentarily wonder that, but there were bottles labelled 23 right next to the 22As!