If you’ve ever noticed that bread bags in the grocery store have different colored twist ties, it turns out there’s a reason — and it has to do with how fresh the bread is.
According to several reports, the twist ties and plastic tags on loaves of bread are meant to indicate when the loaf was baked.
In fact, there’s an entire color code, Reader’s Digest reported.
Each color-coded tag shows when a loaf of bread was baked, according to Reader’s Digest. Getty Images/iStockphotoAccording to the website, each color represents a different day that the bread was baked: blue tags indicate the bread was baked on Monday, green tags indicate Tuesday, red tags indicate Thursday, white tags indicate Friday and yellow tags indicate Saturday.
Reader’s Digest reported that most commercial bakeries are closed on Sunday and Wednesday, which is why those days don’t have specific colors.
According to Insider, the reason bakeries color-code their twist ties and tags is to help employees find stale loaves and replace them with fresh loaves.
For that reason, it is unlikely you’ll ever see more than two colors on shelves, according to Reader’s Digest.
Color coded twist ties help workers sort out expiring loaves of bread and replace them with fresher ones. Getty ImagesThough this system isn’t necessarily universal — some local bakeries might have their own systems — it is “widely used at commercial bread bakeries across the country,” Reader’s Digest reported.
