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My opinion is that the end dates are more conservative to avoid claims when food goes bad before their expiration date and maybe a little planned obsolescence.
by aequitas 7y ago
My opinion is that the end dates are more conservative to avoid claims when food goes bad before their expiration date and maybe a little planned obsolescence. Most people, except for preppers maybe, will not chose one food item over another if it has a year or 2 more of shelf life. So why should manufacturers spend money over this if it's not a selling point to the most common denominator?
To give some perspective check out Steve1989MREInfo's Youtube channel [0], where he routinely ingests food from cans dating as far back as the world wars. Although you might argue he has a built up immumity by now giving the amount of bad food he must have eaten.
[0]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2I6Et1JkidnnbWgJFiMeHA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2I6Et1JkidnnbWgJFiMeHA
- Reelin 7y agoThere's an important difference here between canned food and pretty much everything else. Expiry dates tend to be early for perishable goods, but IMO this is analogous to buildings being overengineered. Canned goods, on the other hand, should last indefinitely so long as the can itself doesn't fail. There's just not a whole lot of relevant chemistry going on in a sterile, low oxygen environment. I suppose permeability of the can itself to oxygen (depending on what method was used to seal it) could become relevant on a long enough timescale, but if the contents are truly sterile even that shouldn't make much difference. If anything does happen to the contents of the can, as noted in another comment there will almost certainly be a visible change in volume (ie the can will deform).