The dates marked on the label of ordinary prepackaged food include production date, shelf-life, expiration date of shelf-life and consumer storage period. The Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Food Labeling (hereinafter referred to as the Measures) and GB 7718-2025 National Food Safety Standard General Standard for the Labeling of Prepackaged Foods have clear requirements for the marking items, marking positions, marking sequences, font sizes, determination of production dates, etc. of dates under different circumstances. Antion will help enterprises understand the relevant requirements.

01 General Requirements

The labeling of date should be clear, eye-catching and easy to identify, should not be separated from the package or container, should not be pasted, re-printed or modified, and should be not easy to fall off.

02 Marking Items under Different Circumstances

GB 7718-2025 clearly stipulates the labeling content of date according to factors such as the length of the shelf-life and the size of the largest surface area of the package.

03 Marking Positions and Methods

Both the Measures and GB 7718-2025 have clearly stipulated the marking positions and methods for the production date and the expiration date of shelf-life, as follows:

1) Mark in an independent area;

2) If the independent area is not set on the principal display panel of the package, the word "See a certain part of the package" should be marked on the principal display panel, which should be clear, obvious, and accurately and specifically described, and the part should be easy to find;

3) It should be marked in the form of black characters on a white background or other forms with obvious contrast.

04 Marking Sequence

GB 7718-2025 stipulates that the production date and the expiration date of shelf-life should be clearly marked in the order of year, month and day. As can be seen from the examples given in Appendix A.2 of the standard, the date numbers can be separated by space, dash, slash, Chinese characters "year, month, day", etc., or can be without separation. The two dates can be marked in the same line and distinguished by methods such as slash, semicolon and space. The followings are examples of correct marking:

Production date: 2025 05 25 Production date: 20250525

Production date/ Expiration date of shelf-life: 2025.05.25/ 2027.05.24

05 Font Size

The Measures stipulates the font sizes of the production date and the expiration date of shelf-life according to the largest surface area of the package, and the details are as follows:

06 Determination of Production Date

The Measures determines the production date according to the completion of the production process.

07 Others

For the minimum sales unit with multiple independent packages, the expiration date of shelf-life of the food expiring the earliest should be marked, or the expiration date of shelf-life of each package can be marked one by one.

Source: Antion

Note: This article is compiled by Antion. Please indicate the source for reprint.