According to MSN.com, expiration Dates on Meat Packaging Are Generally Meaningless
“We hate to break it to you, but expiration dates really don’t mean much.
Sure, Cheez-Its will go stale and milk will go bad a certain number of weeks after packaging, but supermarket meat departments, where they do their own labeling, are generally left up to their own devices (30 states don’t regulate date labeling at all).
This means that if an item is set to expire and it still looks okay, supermarkets are allowed to put a new label on, pushing the expiration date back by days or even more than a week.”
We suggest buying from a butcher where meat is always fresh and delivered regularly.
