Why Does Bottled Water Have an Expiration Date?

Have you ever wondered why that bottle of Poland Spring has a “drink by” date on it when common sense dictates that water doesn’t go bad? You can thank the great state of New Jersey. A 1987 NJ state law required all food products sold there to display an expiration date of two years or less from the date of manufacture. Labeling, separating and shipping batches of expiration-dated water to the Garden State seemed a little inefficient to bottled water producers, so most of them simply started giving every bottle a two-year expiration date, no matter where it was going.

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