Information on the freshness of supermarket eggs from www.aeb.org:

CARTON DATES: Egg cartons from USDA-inspected plants must display a Julian date-- the date the eggs were packed. Although not required, they may also carry an expiration date beyond which the eggs should not be sold. In USDA-inspected plants, this date cannot exceed 30 days after the pack date. It may be less through choice of the packer or quantity purchaser such as your local supermarket chain. Plants not under USDA inspection are governed by laws of their states.

JULIAN DATES: Starting with January 1 as number 1 and ending with December 31 as 365, these numbers represent the consecutive days of the year. This numbering system is sometimes used on egg cartons to denote the day the eggs are packed. Fresh shell eggs can be stored in their cartons in the refrigerator for 4 to 5 weeks beyond this date with insignificant quality loss. (Note: many calandars have the julian date on it.)

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I'm looking at the side of an egg carton from my frig. It has stamped on it P1979 025 SELL BY FEB23. What this tells me is P1979 is most likely the egg farm (for tracking purposes) and 025 means the eggs were packed on January 25th. The sell by date is no more than 30 days from the packaged date.

On another thread, someone said if not sold by the expiration date, some places simply repackage them with a new expiration date. I would suspect almost all eggs are sold within a couple days of being put on the shelves so rather doubt this is a common occurance. The Ass't manager at the local supermarket told me the only repackaging they do is to replace cracked eggs with solid ones.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 13, 2002

Answers

You will find that eggs can hang around at the producer or be bulk shipped to a packer and wait many days before packing. A Jan 25th packing date could be 30 days out from laying. If a supermarket egg fries up thick and relatively small diameter...like you fried it in a ring, you will know that it is fresh. The albmin proteins in a fresh egg are still largely unbroken and so it coagulates much more readily and flows much less readily than one which has been around for 6 days already.

-- Oscar H. Will III (owill@mail.whittier.edu), February 13, 2002.

sell buy date can be from my exprence 16 weeks!!!! this is a week befofe the the egg is layed!!!!!!!!!!

-- william Henry Szall (billisaszall@earthlink.net), February 13, 2002.

I cannot find an egg in my store with a date less then 8 weeks!!

-- william Henry Szall (billisaszall@earthlink.net), February 13, 2002.

John Stupid on 20-20 or so done a report once on the repackaging of eggs. Some ex-employees and some fussy pictured employees were telling how they would get a shipment of outdated eggs back and they would repackage them with new dates. Demanded by their supervisors, so they done what they were told to do!

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), February 13, 2002.

Fresh eggs....when immersed in a bowl of water,will lay horizontal.Old eggs....when immersed in a bowl of water will stand straight up on the end!I have done this with my farm eggs and with store eggs and I was quite surprised at the response of the store eggs. They were old. Try it yourself and see!!

-- carla (herbs@computer-concepts.com), February 13, 2002.

Carla:

I raised your comment to the American Egg Boards. Here is their reply:

Placing an egg in salted water will cause an egg to float because the salt makes the water heavier than the egg - the more salt, the higher the egg will float. Placing an egg in plain water to see if it floats indicates the relative size of an egg's air cell which reflects upon its quality, but is not an accurate indicator of the egg's age. Eggs take in air and lose carbon dioxide and water as they age. However, because eggs have varying sizes of air cells when they are laid and because both warm temperatures and drying conditions hasten aging and air-cell growth, carton dates, rather than air-cell size, are the most accurate indicators of actual age.

Whether the cause is time, temperature or storage conditions, as the air cell grows and the egg loses moisture and carbon dioxide, the white thins, the yolk flattens and the membrane around the yolk weakens. These quality changes cause an egg to spread more in the pan when it is fried, produce more "angel wings" in the water when it is poached and may result in inadvertent yolk breakage during cooking or during yolk and white separation. Though not as attractive when broken out, an older egg and/or an egg with a large air cell will still perform all its normal functions in a scramble, omelet, quiche or other custard, meringue, baked good or other recipe in which the egg's shape is not important. As the yolk membrane weakens, any potential bacteria present in the white have the opportunity to migrate to the yolk and the yolk's nutrients provide a good growth medium. So, the older the eggs, the better it is to use them in fully cooked recipes, such as baked goods.

A large air cell, though, neither causes nor indicates a rotten egg or spoilage; neither does the presence of an odor necessarily indicate an egg rot. An egg's moisture content decreases over time, a process hastened by warm temperatures and storage in a dehumidifying atmosphere, such as a frost-free refrigerator. --------------------------

Thus, you farm-fresh eggs may simply have a naturally smaller air pocket than factory farm eggs.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 15, 2002.

the goverment funded group, ATTRA, in its poultry handout, said "that eggs could be kept in storage for up to 9 months before packing & shipping occurs" =yikes= i'm assumming that this is a serious climate controlled storage!

-- bj pepper in C. MS. (pepper.pepper@excite.com), February 18, 2002.

Back when my Hubbie was a kid, he worked in a grocery store. He told me quite often the eggs sat in the back on a pallet (not refrigerated) for a good month before even going out front. Now this was a while ago, so not sure about the date stamps then. I think the reason those store bought eggs peeled so well when you hard boiled them was because they were so old! ;) Don't have to worry about that now, as I have a system for the eggs I collect - eat em right up!

-- Michelle in NM (naychurs_way@hotmail.com), February 18, 2002.