According to the sell by date, these Alexia Potato Julienne fries will last you until 6,071,100,111.
Long after the cities have crumbled into the sea and Man has gasped his last gasp, these fries will be ready and waiting to be placed into an oven preheated to 400°F.
(Thanks to Stephen!)
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Aroo? No picture…not even a kitteh?
America! F***, yeah!
It’s just a coded sell by date. A lot of products have these.
Exactly. Just a sell-by date. I’ll bet the fries will actually stay good until 6,071,100,112.
True, but most of them don’t put “sell by” in front of them. Kinda defeats the purpose. If you want it in a secret code that consumers can’t understand (easily), don’t telegraph your intentions.
I didn’t know you could get fries made out of Twinkies.
Or if you really want to be decadent then fried Twinkies. Mmmm….
“Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor… The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The piece de resistance, however, is a ruby-hued berry sauce, adding a tart sophistication to all that airy sugary goodness”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/15/dining/fry-that-twinkie-but-hold-the-chips.html
I think that journalist has a future in food porn.
i’ve got a bag of these in my freezer!
sell by 6071 092411
and now that i remembered they exist, they will be my lunch. mmmmmmm sweet potato fries!
I have bad news: those fries expired November 24 of last year…
Eh, on second thought, maybe they’re good until November 9th of next year.
I guess that makes more sense.
Um, September you mean, not November.
Yeah, got even more confused, but decided not to risk making things worse :p
month day year. but also, it’s the sell by date, so even if they were past that date, they still look fine so i’d eat them. and i did. they were delicious!
Canadians and Europeans and such: Do your ovens have a mark for 204°C?
My mother would have dumped these fries in a skillet full of lard, explaining that they taste better that way. And she was right.
yes, I can set my oven by degrees. Though the lard sounds better, I agree.
Most American ovens’ temp dials are marked in 25 degree increments. 4 degrees wouldn’t work.
My oven’s in Fahrenheit not Celsius but yep I can type in whatever number I want.
Translated….Sell by October 1, 2011???
100111 = 10-01-2011
Looks like the ‘coded’ date is 10/01/11 or October 1st, 2011
So the fries expire on 06/07/2011. That is about a year away.
Slow day at the Consumerist fellas??
I think you meant: Slw dy t th Cnsmrst flls??
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb258/hdm51/I-see-what-you-did-there.jpg
Except October 1, 2011 is also likely. I’d say confusing sell-by date printing is a reasonable topic of discussion.
I normally interpret large numbers like that as UNIX time, so maybe it’s only 8:41:51 AM, Friday, May 21, 2162?
Haha, that was my first thought as well!
Nerd power!
I don’t think, though, that these fries have a 150 year shelf life…
Hilarious. Were they also shipped in a box three sizes too large?
Alexia fries are AWESOME
Great!
Once I return from the Andromeda Galaxy in my pimped out starship, I will know I that my fries will still be morning fresh!
Ever heard of a lot date? Long weekend guys? Fact checker on vaca? Where is that donate button?
Come on consumerist, this is just sad. Its obviously a coded sell by date. 6071 could mean 6/7/11, 100111 could mean 10/01/2011, or something else. Either way, its not a mistake, a quick googling of Alexia returns this page, which has similar codes listed for product recalls:
http://www.alexiafoods.com/alexia-to-the-trade/recall.jsp
Perhaps not a mistake. But I’ve found expired products on the shelves of virtually every grocery store I’ve shopped at. I’ve even had a pharmacist give me ointment which was past its sell-by date.
IMHO, sell-by and best-before dates should be in simple, unmistakable format that the average shopper can read without guessing.
I also think a date of 11/07/2010 does not meet this standard, since today it could be past its date or good for another 4 months.
Rationalize it however you want, but the numbers do not make sense as they stand. No one in the world writes 6071 to mean 6/7/11. 100111 might be valid, but it impossible to know with the other 4 digits written in front of it. With the current state of technology there is no reason for such primitive labeling
I agree but if you click on the link above these numbers are not for the consumers. They are part of the “bag code”.
100111 is especially useless as any of those digits could be a month indicator and either 10 or 11 could be a year. Or maybe the damn thing is binary. Don’t forget Julian dates for added fun.
In the US, 100111 means “October 01, 2011.” In the sane world, 100111 means “10 January 2011.” Just depends on where it was made.
In no sane counting is 6071 any date in 2011.
Sane no, but MDDY is a common coded sell by date format. Look it up.
So apparently man will have gasped is last gasp and the cities will have fallen into the sea in a year and a half.
I would assume it would be 10.01.11 since 6071 looks like it’s part of the lot code that’s printed above.
Yeah, it looks like they print the 4 digit lot code in both spots just in case so it’s always known. It’s redundancy.
Didn’t Zager and Evans record a song about these french fries??
Also known as 5.5/Apple/26. . . .
If you don’t eat the fries before they expire, then the Morlocks win…
It’s a “bag code”, people. They probably shouldn’t have used the words “Sell by” but those numbers are for the manufacturer and the retailers and don’t have to make any sense to the consumer.
It’s a “sell by” people. If they don’t want it interpreted as such then they shouldn’t have said so.
Well, it’s not a UNIX timestamp
Fri, 21 May 2162 08:41:51 UTC
The 6071 is odd, but 100111 is the date by which the fries must be sold. Referred to as the “sell by date”, printed there in clear-enough english. The OP can rest assured: the fries could have easily sat on the shelf until October 1, 2011, and still be safely and legally sold.
6 billion years!? When the sun expands into a red giant and engulfs the Earth only 5 billion years from now those fries are going to be burnt to a crisp. Just eat them now.
I would think common sense would bring one to realize it says 10/01/11… But who am I to assume someone has common sense…