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Legal & Finance
Lots, Codes, and Life:
Dating in the Beer Industry
By: Erik Myers
A s the number of active breweries in the
country exceeds 7000 and roars toward
8000, it’s more important than ever to
consider one of the crucial facets of your
packaged product: shelf life, and how to commu-
nicate it to your customer. It’s not just marketing;
date lot coding and traceability is required by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the
Bioterrorism Act of 2002. However, the exact meth-
od of recording date lot codes is ultimately up to
each individual brewer, and there is a vast array of
practices in the industry that can ensure that your
customer knows how fresh your beer is, and that
you’re in compliance with federal code at the same
time.
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Why Is Date Coding Important?
The easiest answer to this question is because you
must. It’s the law. In the unfortunate situation that
your brewery – or one of your suppliers – might
have to recall product from the market, having date
lot coding that is on every package, is easy to find,
and easy to understand will allow your staff and
every downstream partner, whether it’s a distribu-
tor or a retailer, to comply with the recall efficiently
and ultimately save you headaches and money.
It’s also a great tool that your sales force–or your
distributor–can use to be sure that beer in the
market is as fresh as possible, it can help with FIFO
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