Check Twist Ties For Freshness

Sherri Seymour

February 21, 20050 found this helpful

Just a note that one time I watched a gentleman (product vendor or store employee?) removing expired twist ties and replacing them with newer dated ones. This creeped me out and I no longer buy that brand, or any brand, without the date stamped on the plastic wrapper instead of the tie.

I live in California and it's the same here.

Rio Lady

I received an email about 2 years ago in regards to the twist ties. At the time I read the email I was doubtful, but started paying attention to the color of the twist ties each time I bought bread.

I have found the color coding to be quite accurate.

THIS IS VERY ACCURATE IN THE FRESHNESS OF THE BREAD LOAVES. I WAS TOLD BY A BREAD PERSONAL TO ALWAYS GET YOUR LOAF FROM THE BACK OF THE SHELVES, AS THEY MOVE THE OLDER BREAD TO THE FRONT UNTIL IT'S GONE. MOST PEOPLE DON'T LOOK. IT REALLY PAYS OFF IF YOU DO.

This is tru in San Diego area, where I live. Also, the color names are in alphabetical order starting with B for blue for Monday and W for white on Sat.

Annie Rios Hill
Diamond Feedback Medal for All Time! 1,317 Feedbacks

February 21, 20051 found this helpful

Yes I saw the vendor come in and CHANGE the tie...
I buy date STAMPED bread. I worked in a bakery
in a retail store and found this to be true...

I checked with truth or fiction web site, and this is what they said below: http://www.truthorfiction.com

You Can Tell How Fresh the Bread is By the Color of the Twist or Plastic Tab Used to Hold it Closed-Truth!

Summary of the eRumor:
This email says that if you want to know how fresh the bread is in your grocery store, look at the tie that is holding the wrapper closed. Bread is delivered five days a week, Monday Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and the bread maker puts a different colored tie on to designate which day of the week the bread was baked:
Monday - Blue

Tuesday - Green

Thursday - Red

Friday - White

Saturday - Yellow

The Truth:
According to the grocery store manager we checked with, this is true, but each bread company uses its own color code, so there isn't just one that will apply to everything on the shelf.

Most of the bread you'll find on U.S. supermarket shelves arrives housed in plastic wrappers closed by colored twist tags or plastic tabs. The tabs serve a purpose besides aiding in keeping the bread fresh once everyone in the family is diving into the loaf -- their colors provide a quick visual reference to the people whose job it is to recycle the stock by removing older loaves while loading the shelves with fresh product.

It's the removal part of the restocking process that's key to understanding why this bit of Internet advice isn't really worth the time it would take to memorize any code. Bread is not kept on the shelf for longer than a couple of days. Indeed, it's those colored twist tags that make this recycling of stock practical -- because of them, the restocker has an easy time recognizing which loaves have to be taken away.

Those tags assist mightily in your never getting stuck with an older loaf, even if you're not much of a bread squeezer. In the absence of the color cues, some of the older product might be overlooked by a harried clerk trying to read one tiny "Best Before" date after another. (By the by, some of these tags actually do have such dates printed on them, and in those cases the date does represent the date the bread is to be removed from the store, not the date it was baked on.) As it is, shoppers should never encounter more than two colors of tags on the shelf at any time for any one brand of bread: that of the most recent delivery and that of the one just before it. This will sometimes work out to being today's and yesterday's bakings, but there will generally be two days a week when no bread is delivered, thus a three-day spread will be represented by the two colors at stores that receive delivery only five times a week instead of seven.

In other words, since you're not going to encounter a loaf that's more than a few days old anyway, there's no earthly reason to mail off the astonishing news to the entire population of your online address book that there's a secret code worked into bread tags. Even without knowing the code, your friends and family are never going to get a stale loaf.

Is the color code quoted in the example applicable to every breadmaker's product? No, because there are different manufacturers out there, and each of them uses its own system -- there's no industry-wide standard. The code explained in the e-mail might or might not be the right one for the brand you're after so, caveat emptor: Placing blind reliance on the BGRWY code could well result in your consistently fetching home the older bread instead of the fresher stuff. Also, the schedule quoted above (fresh bread delivered every day except Wednesday and Sunday) doesn't hold true in every area.

Different stores can be on different rotations, and even within the same store some brands will be coming in five times a week, while others arrive seven days a week.

What to do if you're absolutely determined to have only the freshest bread on your table, now that you know there's a code you're set on making use of? Contact the manufacturer of your favorite brand and ask what (if any) color-coded tag system they adhere to and what their delivery schedule to your favorite store is, then let your selection be guided by that.

what about the black twist ties from whole grain bread? anyone know what the black twist tie color stands for???