Expiration dates are literally made up, very infrequently will any actual testing be done to see the exact time it takes for a food to decay enough to be either unenjoyable, unpalatable or inedible.
They’re usually 1 week from mfgr for unpreserved foods, 2 weeks to a month for soft foods like American sandwich bread, 3 months to a year for dry goods (depending on what it is) and up to several years for canned goods.
My salt has an expiration date. Salt is a rock, it is millions of years old (not sea salt, mined salt). It does not expire.
I don’t know where you got your information, and I can’t speak for other food stuffs, but I used to work in a milk bottling facility. I did quality assurance. Part of my job was to take gallons of milk (many of them) and put them in refrigeration until two days after the expiration date, and then taste them. While most of them tasted pretty much fine, about 30% were sour, coagulated, or some other sign of type of spoiled.
Expiration dates are real, but they are an estimation of when the product will go bad. Use your own judgement. Smells/tastes bad/weird, or is oddly oily and stuff, probably don’t consume that. Seems completely fine but past the expiration date, you will probably be completely fine.
Let me put it this way: They print expiration dates on SALT.
Now, it’s pretty convenient that stores here in Denmark sell products cheaper just before they “expire” because certain products actually get better with time like cheese.
Safe to say I’m the second type hehe…I don’t know if it’s correct, but for the first type I once read that it might be because of the packaging and/or the interaction between product and packaging that might affect the product. And even if it would still be “never expires”, the company doesn’t want to pay to verify.
