Yeah. I feel like they probably just pick some random bullshit, and if people get botulism they look at reducing it, and if they throw away a quarter-million dollars worth of product that expired they look at increasing it, and if neither of those happens then they don't worry about it. I have no knowledge of it but even hearing that they do taste tests is a little surprising to me. But I am cynical.

I did know some people who were once "employed" on a sort of temp job that was excising already-passed expiration dates from a massive number of cans of fish, and then stamping new later dates on them.

☹️

Changes in texture are used for the best by dates too.

Yeah a lot of the dates are just guesses that they know for a fact it will last longer. They are required to put a date but not required to actually test how long an item lasts. A lot of items last much longer than their expiration date. Salt should be good indefinitely.

Yeah but this kind of salt they only taste test every half million years or so, so the expiration dates cant be trusted to be that precise.