You’ve worked up a sweat, feeling dehydrated like never before, so you reach for your bottle of water, crack the seal and lift the bottle to your lips.
Besides that, the expiration date on bottled water has certain benefits for the manufacturer.
This won’t necessarily make the water toxic, but the taste may be somewhat less than the ‘mountain spring fresh’ the packaging assures you.
If consumers complain that water they bought several years earlier tastes bad, the company can point out that it’s their own fault for not drinking it by the expiration date.
Furthermore, many companies bottle water using the same machines they use to bottle sodas and other beverages which do expire and should carry an expiration date.
Lastly, expiration dates are usually one part of a printed code that also identifies the date, bottling plant, and other information.
Even though the expiration date itself may be meaningless, the manufacturing information could be useful in tracking down contamination, bottling errors or product recall.
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