# Packaged Beans Sell-by-Date



## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

I would never receive such beans


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## Milesy (Mar 8, 2012)

Out of interest, I dropped by a local company who supplies restaurants etc to get my machine detergent and they gave me some free sampler bags of Italian roast beans. The date is next year on them. I ran out of beans and opened them out of curiosity. During the pour imust have got about an oz of horrible looking black liquid at the start. This was on a fairy fine grind as well.


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## SlowRoast (Sep 24, 2010)

18 months is terrible. Even 7 months was enough to kill some robust packed Costa beans we found at work, it was quite amusing to watch everyone flap about the machines, even though I told them it's simply because they're stale but they just said they're fine until next year! Funny how the next day I plonked some fresh beans in the hopper and surprise surprise the crema returns.


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## CoffeeMagic (Aug 7, 2011)

What you have to understand is that the dates are required by Trading Standards and are really an indication of when it may become 'unsafe' to use. The dates have nothing to do with whether it tastes good. Almost any coffee opened after a year would be safe to drink, but certainly wouldn't taste like coffee. It may be a bit confusing, but I think it is about time that the consumer understood the date requirement rather than applying their own interpretation and blaming the producer each time.


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## xiuxiuejar (Jan 24, 2012)

CoffeeMagic said:


> What you have to understand is that the dates are required by Trading Standards and are really an indication of when it may become 'unsafe' to use. The dates have nothing to do with whether it tastes good. Almost any coffee opened after a year would be safe to drink, but certainly wouldn't taste like coffee. It may be a bit confusing, but I think it is about time that the consumer understood the date requirement rather than applying their own interpretation and blaming the producer each time.


Add to that that these are usually blends of inferior beans and usually very cheap robustas and you have a recipe for disaster. The robusta beans are perfect for long shelf lives as you can produce crema with extremely stale beans - in fact I once read that robusta beans were better stale than fresh, although whether that's true I don't know.


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## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

CoffeeMagic makes an important point, I think, regarding legal requirements for sell-by/use-by dates. Assuming his statement is correct (on a national basis rather than there being different rules for each local authority) then I presume ALL roasters (HasBean, Square Mile etc) place an 18 month use-by date on their bags. Maybe it is tucked away somewhere, however, as I can't say I've ever noticed such a date displayed prominently on the bags of the roasters I buy from, as they give pride of place to statements that focus on quality rather than legal requirements, such as the roast date along with "best within 10 days of roasting, use within four weeks" etc. That is the sort of info I look for as a customer.


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## CoffeeMagic (Aug 7, 2011)

Unfortunately the legal requirement can be implemented in various ways - Best before / Use by / Consume within x days. Trading Standards require that packaging be "...clearly marked with how long it will keep...". The requirement for taste, etc is that it "...meets reasonable expectations which the customer might have about taste, smell and appearance". So it should only be treated as a guide and common sense should also prevail.

My bags have a roast date and a statement regarding "best used within" x days of roast date, which is compliant but may not necessarily be what a particular person may want to see. So I would repeat again that common sense should prevail (together with your 5 senses) when dealing with any foodstuff.


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## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

Based on those Trading Standards quotes, Ron, I would have to disagree with your comment that the dates are an indication of when they become unsafe to use. There would seem to be latitude to use the dates a few different ways. Roasters adopting a quality-focus strategy use it to communicate their belief that the product will not keep much longer than a month or two. Roasters adopting a commodity-focus strategy use it to maximise shelf life, which comes back to my initial statement... I will never receive such beans. They are commodity, not speciality.


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## CoffeeMagic (Aug 7, 2011)

When I spoke to Trading Standards, to confirm my own compliant description was ok, I was informed by them that with foodstuffs (and coffee is a grey area) it is intended to indicate safe consumption. On that basis I would disagree with you and reafirm what I said originally. Jeez, phone them yourself, perhaps they can convince you! You are a hard person to please, but there again "everyone's a critic".


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## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

Zzzzz here we go again


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