Friday Fun One: Tesco’s incomprehensible ‘best before date’

28th June 2019

Elias Jahshan

Friday Fun One

It started with a simple tweet.

Last weekend one Tesco shopper, Matthew Stock, took to Twitter to ask the grocery giant about an incomprehensible “best before” date on a packet of burger relish he had just purchased.

The expiry date read, “20140”.

@Tesco hello there Tesco, could you please explain this expiry date please 🤔🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/2CtcBsmH0W

— Matthew Stock (@mattyjstock) June 23, 2019

What followed was a hilarious – yet very British and very polite – chain of tweets.

Soon after Stock posted his query and image, Tesco replied, with a member of its customer service team conceding bafflement:

If I’m honest Matthew, I have no idea. 2nd of January 2040? Can you send me the products barcode number? I’ll have a chat with my support team about this and find out for you. Thanks – Sharon

— Tesco (@Tesco) June 23, 2019

Stock obliged:

There you go sharon. Thanks 👍 pic.twitter.com/YuWFZAQwBj

— Matthew Stock (@mattyjstock) June 23, 2019

This was followed by a quick clarification:

Yup they was like a set you get 2 burgers 2 buns 2 cheeses slices and a sachet of the relish .

— Matthew Stock (@mattyjstock) June 23, 2019

At which point another customer service team member jumped on with this dry response:

Hi Matthew, I have had a response from my support team. They have advised the date code on the relish only is the Julian date. 20140 is the 140th day. This translated into the Gregorian calendar is the 20th May 2020. Thanks – Maggie

— Tesco (@Tesco) June 25, 2019

Mayhem ensued:

Hi Matthew, I fully agree with you. If I had received this myself I wouldn’t have known what this meant. What I can do is pass this through to my support team to ask why they date it this way. Ill come back to you asap. Thanks – Maggie

— Tesco (@Tesco) June 25, 2019

Twitter lapped it up, naturally, with some praising Maggie for her seemingly blase.

https://twitter.com/PaulyKendrick/status/1143512441080438784

https://twitter.com/ted_pen/status/1143466162661056515

19176, the day Maggie ripped up the rule book and took us back to Julian calendar!

— Ollie 🏳️‍🌈🧑‍🚀 (@OllieClifff) June 25, 2019

This conversation is so polite, I love it

— Kirbie Barbiecore Johnson (@kirbiejohnson) June 26, 2019

Q: How long do we have to use the burger relish?

Me: pic.twitter.com/UaCXFGkyXs

— Steve Dresser (@dresserman) June 25, 2019

I worked support for the better part of a decade and I can picture the exact look on her face as 1) she received the information, and 2) she set fingers to keyboard to type it. I can even envision the pause before typing, as she thought "I can't believe this is real life"

— The Union Makes Us Strong #WGA #SAGAFTRA 💪 (@saucissonsec) June 25, 2019

https://twitter.com/PAldousMusic/status/1143501849212915712