Clorox Bleach Package Observation

[BoDarville]

[attachment=0:18ue2a94]CloroxPkg.jpg[/attachment:18ue2a94]I have noticed something on the 3-bottle package of Clorox at Sam's Club. The 3-digit code circled on the attached image appears to correlate with the ordinal day of the year. Note the 144 that is circled in red. I purchased this package about a month ago. If this number is in fact the ordinal day of the year, it would indicate that this was packaged in late May. I have noticed that this code has incremented on subsequent packages I have purchased. I have a few other packages purchased two weeks ago where this code reads 158. Most recent package (purchased last week) is up to 164. Given this trend, it seems plausible that this code may represent the ordinal date when the bottles were packaged.

Has anyone else noticed this? I'm going to keep an eye on this throughout the year and see if this trend continues.

 

[woodyp]

Yes, several people have made reference to this in the thread about Bleach Prices 2013. I bought 10 cases, been through 3 so far, and they all have different "codes".

 

[mynewpool]

Today is day 187. I just checked mine and one was 154 and one was 165. Seems to be that the bleach is a little old. Maybe I will start paying more attention.

 

[jcowart]

Yes that's the date code. It shows the Year/day of year/Dallas plant/blending line 1/time stamp. They also bottle Hasa, Great Value, Dollar store, target brand that I know of.

 

[BoDarville]

Here are a few more details on these codes that I will cross-reference here for convenience...

There's a trick I found elsewhere on this forum for determining the age of consumer-grade bleach. This works for Clorox, and possibly other brands as well.

Above the label, there is a number stamped into the bottle that looks something like:

A83105XXXX

Here's how to identify the useful information:
A83105
A8: The plant the bleach was manufactured at
3: The last digit of the year it was manufactured (eg, 2013 = 3)
105: The day of the year it was manufactured (eg, 105th day of 2013, or April 15, 2013)

Here's the link to the Bleach Prices 2013 thread: http://www.troublefreepool.com/bleach-prices-2013-t58266-140.html. Above quote is currently on page 8 of this thread as of today, July 7, 2013.