Does date marking apply to food held less than 24 hours?

No. Section 3-501.17 applies only to RTE TCS food held longer than 24 hours. Food prepared for immediate service — a sandwich made and served within an hour, a batch of chicken salad prepared for the day's lunch rush and finished by end of shift — does not require date marking. The 24-hour trigger is specifically designed to exempt same-day operations. Once food is intentionally held beyond 24 hours, the date-marking clock starts.

What if I open a commercial container of RTE food but only use some of it?

Day 1 is the day you opened the container. Once opened, the remaining product in the container is treated as an RTE TCS food prepared on that date — even though the manufacturer may have printed a "use by" or "sell by" date on the original packaging. Your 7-day count runs from the open date. If the manufacturer's "use by" date is EARLIER than 7 days from the open date, use the earlier date. If it is LATER, still apply the 7-day rule — the establishment's 7-day count is the operative limit under §3-501.17 regardless of the manufacturer date.

Can I extend the 7 days if my cooler runs colder than 41°F?

No. The 7-day rule is a fixed maximum under §3-501.17, not a temperature-adjusted sliding scale. Even if your walk-in operates at 35°F, the maximum is still 7 days from Day 1. Colder holding does slow Listeria growth further, but the rule is written as a fixed 7-day window because the risk assessment underpinning it assumed 41°F holding as a worst case within the compliant range. Establishments that regularly want longer holding windows should evaluate whether the food genuinely needs to be held that long, or whether smaller-batch preparation would eliminate the risk.

Does date marking apply to raw meat, raw fish, or raw eggs in shell?

Generally no. Section 3-501.17 applies only to RTE food. Raw meat, raw poultry, raw fish, and eggs in shell are NOT RTE because they must be cooked before consumption. Cooking to the required internal temperature under §3-401.11 handles the pathogen risk. Date marking may still be a best practice for inventory rotation, but it is not required by §3-501.17. Note the exception for foods that will be served raw or lightly-cooked (sushi, tartare, ceviche, rare beef) — those foods are RTE for §3-501.17 purposes even though they appear raw, and date marking applies once they are opened or prepared.

What happens if we miss a date mark on a batch?

Under §3-501.18, unmarked RTE TCS food must be discarded when the establishment cannot determine when the food was prepared or opened. There is no forgiveness or grace period for missing labels — inspectors treat undated food as expired. If you find an unmarked container in the walk-in during a self-audit, you must discard it or, if you can verify preparation within the last 24 hours through documented preparation logs or other reliable records, date it now and treat it as within the window. Documentation is critical: without evidence, the food goes.

Are cheese and yogurt exempt from date marking?

Some are. Section 3-501.17(G) exempts hard cheeses (like Parmigiano-Reggiano, aged Cheddar, dry Jack), certain semi-soft cheeses on the exemption list, and cultured dairy products (yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, kefir). The exemption reflects the low moisture and low pH of these products, which restrict Listeria growth. But not all cheeses are exempt — fresh mozzarella, feta, brie, camembert, and other high-moisture soft cheeses ARE subject to date marking once opened. Consult the FDA date-marking guide or the specific exemption list before assuming a cheese is exempt.

Date Marking of RTE TCS Foods: §3-501.17 & §3-501.18

TL;DR

FDA Food Code §3-501.17 requires that ready-to-eat, time/temperature control for safety (RTE TCS) food held in a food establishment for more than 24 hours be marked with the date or day by which the food must be consumed, sold, or discarded. The maximum window is 7 calendar days when the food is held at 41°F (5°C) or below, with day of preparation (for on-site foods) or day of opening (for commercially processed foods) counted as Day 1. Section 3-501.18 governs disposition: RTE TCS food must be discarded when its date-marked window expires, when it appears in the establishment more than 7 days from Day 1, or when the date marking cannot be verified. Freezing pauses the date-marking clock but does NOT reset it — a food refrigerated for 2 days, frozen, and thawed still has 5 days remaining. Both sections are risk-designated for public health — §3-501.17 is a Priority Foundation (Pf) item and §3-501.18 is a Priority (P) item on the Food Establishment Inspection Report. The rules exist because Listeria monocytogenes can grow at refrigeration temperatures, and a controlled 7-day window limits the opportunity for Listeria growth during refrigerated storage.

What "RTE TCS" actually means

Date marking under §3-501.17 applies only to foods that meet three conditions: the food is ready-to-eat (RTE), meaning it can be safely eaten without further cooking; the food is time/temperature control for safety (TCS), meaning it supports rapid growth of pathogens or toxin formation at unsafe temperatures; and the food is held longer than 24 hours in the establishment. Foods that are prepared and served within 24 hours never enter the date-marking rule. Foods that are not RTE (raw meat requiring cooking, raw seed sprouts that will be cooked, uncooked eggs in shell) also fall outside — the rule targets only foods a customer can eat as-is.

Common RTE TCS foods that require date marking include chicken salad, tuna salad, sliced deli meats, opened packages of hot dogs or lunch meats, cut leafy greens, sliced tomatoes, cooked pork roast, cooked scrambled eggs held for later service, opened cottage cheese, opened cream cheese, cooked pasta salads, potato salads made in-house, and opened commercially processed RTE dips or spreads. If any of these are held for more than 24 hours, date marking applies. Foods NOT requiring date marking under §3-501.17(G) include hard cheeses (like Parmesan and Romano), semi-soft cheeses on the exemption list, cultured dairy products (yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk), fermented sausages not labeled "keep refrigerated," and specifically-exempted deli salads prepared and packaged in a food processing plant.

How the 7-day count works

The core rule under §3-501.17 is 7 calendar days maximum when the food is held at 41°F (5°C) or below. The day of preparation (for foods prepared in the establishment) or the day the container was opened (for commercially processed foods) is counted as Day 1. A batch of chicken salad prepared on Monday must be consumed, sold, or discarded by end of day Sunday (Monday = Day 1, Tuesday = Day 2, Wednesday = Day 3, Thursday = Day 4, Friday = Day 5, Saturday = Day 6, Sunday = Day 7). The rule is inclusive on both ends: Monday counts, and the food must be gone by end of Sunday.

Day	Calendar Day	Status
Day 1	Monday (prep day)	Food prepared or container opened; date-marked
Day 2-6	Tuesday-Saturday	Food available for use, sale, or service
Day 7	Sunday	Last day of use, sale, or service
Day 8	Monday (next week)	Food MUST be discarded under §3-501.18

Under §3-501.17, the format of the date mark itself is flexible. The establishment may mark the container with a preparation date, with a discard date, or with any other system as long as all employees understand and apply it consistently. A "discard by Sun 3/8" label, a "prep 3/1" label, or a color-coded day-of-week label all comply, as long as the 7-day maximum is respected. What matters is that any employee can verify from the label that the food is within the 7-day window.

Choosing a date-marking system

Two approaches are common. In a "prep-date" system, staff mark the container with the day the food was made or opened. Anyone looking at the label subtracts from today's date to determine remaining time. This system is simple to apply at prep but requires math at inspection or use — a Tuesday prep date on a Friday means Day 4 of 7, so 3 days remain. In a "discard-date" system, staff calculate the 7-day window at prep and mark the container with the last usable date. Anyone looking at the label compares to today: if today is past the discard date, the food is gone. This system requires math at prep but is simpler at use.

Both systems comply with §3-501.17. Establishments should pick one and apply it consistently across all shifts. Mixing prep-date and discard-date labels in the same walk-in is a common source of confusion and can trigger a §3-501.18 violation if staff mistake a prep date for a discard date and use expired food. Color-coded day-of-week labels (yellow = Tuesday prep, blue = Wednesday prep, etc.) can eliminate the reading-error problem but require staff to memorize the color code.

The freezing rule: pause, not reset

One of the trickiest points of §3-501.17 is what happens when RTE TCS food is frozen partway through its 7-day window. The rule: freezing pauses the date-marking clock but does NOT reset it. If a chicken salad is prepared on Monday and refrigerated for 2 days (Days 1 and 2), then frozen on Wednesday morning, the salad has used 2 of its 7 days. When it is later thawed and returned to refrigeration, it has 5 days remaining, not a fresh 7.

Compliance requires the container to be marked with all three relevant dates: the preparation date (or a preparation Day 1), the freeze date, and the thaw date. An inspector or employee looking at the label can then compute the remaining window: total days in refrigeration before freeze, plus days since thaw, must not exceed 7. Many establishments use a supplementary label system for frozen foods — a bright pink "FROZEN" sticker with the freeze date, applied over the original date mark, and then a "THAWED" sticker with the thaw date when the food returns to refrigeration.

Combining foods from different batches

When foods with different date marks are combined into a new preparation, the combined food inherits the OLDEST date. If Tuesday's opened deli-turkey package and Wednesday's opened deli-turkey package are combined in a single container on Friday, the combined container is marked with Tuesday's date. The rationale: the older food is the limiting factor for safety. Applying the newer date would extend the window on the older food, which §3-501.17 does not permit.

The practical implication is that establishments benefit from tracking source dates carefully during batch consolidation. A cook who consolidates smaller containers to save cooler space at end of shift, and marks the consolidated container with the current date, is violating §3-501.17 by re-starting the clock. The correct practice is to identify the oldest source container and carry its date to the consolidated container.

Disposition under §3-501.18

Section 3-501.18 is the enforcement side of the rule. RTE TCS food that has exceeded its 7-day date-marked window must be discarded. Food that appears in the establishment without a date mark (when a date mark should be present) must be discarded. Food where the date mark is illegible or cannot be verified must be discarded. The rule is unforgiving because pathogen risk (including from cold-tolerant organisms like Listeria) increases as refrigerated storage extends beyond the allowed date-marked window, and food that has crossed that line is no longer safe regardless of appearance, smell, or taste.

Section 3-501.18 is a Priority (P) violation on the Food Establishment Inspection Report — the highest risk category. An inspector who finds expired date-marked food in a cold-holding unit will mark the item OUT of compliance and require immediate discard. Repeated §3-501.18 violations can trigger permit review and possible suspension. Because §3-501.17 is Priority Foundation (Pf) — the second-highest risk category — inspectors also cite the establishment for the date-marking failure itself, separately from the disposition failure. Both citations can appear on the same inspection.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does date marking apply to food held less than 24 hours?: No. Section 3-501.17 applies only to RTE TCS food held longer than 24 hours. Food prepared for immediate service — a sandwich made and served within an hour, a batch of chicken salad prepared for the day's lunch rush and finished by end of shift — does not require date marking. The 24-hour trigger is specifically designed to exempt same-day operations. Once food is intentionally held beyond 24 hours, the date-marking clock starts.
What if I open a commercial container of RTE food but only use some of it?: Day 1 is the day you opened the container. Once opened, the remaining product in the container is treated as an RTE TCS food prepared on that date — even though the manufacturer may have printed a "use by" or "sell by" date on the original packaging. Your 7-day count runs from the open date. If the manufacturer's "use by" date is EARLIER than 7 days from the open date, use the earlier date. If it is LATER, still apply the 7-day rule — the establishment's 7-day count is the operative limit under §3-501.17 regardless of the manufacturer date.
Can I extend the 7 days if my cooler runs colder than 41°F?: No. The 7-day rule is a fixed maximum under §3-501.17, not a temperature-adjusted sliding scale. Even if your walk-in operates at 35°F, the maximum is still 7 days from Day 1. Colder holding does slow Listeria growth further, but the rule is written as a fixed 7-day window because the risk assessment underpinning it assumed 41°F holding as a worst case within the compliant range. Establishments that regularly want longer holding windows should evaluate whether the food genuinely needs to be held that long, or whether smaller-batch preparation would eliminate the risk.
Does date marking apply to raw meat, raw fish, or raw eggs in shell?: Generally no. Section 3-501.17 applies only to RTE food. Raw meat, raw poultry, raw fish, and eggs in shell are NOT RTE because they must be cooked before consumption. Cooking to the required internal temperature under §3-401.11 handles the pathogen risk. Date marking may still be a best practice for inventory rotation, but it is not required by §3-501.17. Note the exception for foods that will be served raw or lightly-cooked (sushi, tartare, ceviche, rare beef) — those foods are RTE for §3-501.17 purposes even though they appear raw, and date marking applies once they are opened or prepared.
What happens if we miss a date mark on a batch?: Under §3-501.18, unmarked RTE TCS food must be discarded when the establishment cannot determine when the food was prepared or opened. There is no forgiveness or grace period for missing labels — inspectors treat undated food as expired. If you find an unmarked container in the walk-in during a self-audit, you must discard it or, if you can verify preparation within the last 24 hours through documented preparation logs or other reliable records, date it now and treat it as within the window. Documentation is critical: without evidence, the food goes.
Are cheese and yogurt exempt from date marking?: Some are. Section 3-501.17(G) exempts hard cheeses (like Parmigiano-Reggiano, aged Cheddar, dry Jack), certain semi-soft cheeses on the exemption list, and cultured dairy products (yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, kefir). The exemption reflects the low moisture and low pH of these products, which restrict Listeria growth. But not all cheeses are exempt — fresh mozzarella, feta, brie, camembert, and other high-moisture soft cheeses ARE subject to date marking once opened. Consult the FDA date-marking guide or the specific exemption list before assuming a cheese is exempt.

Bottom Line

FDA Food Code §3-501.17 requires ready-to-eat, time/temperature control for safety (RTE TCS) food held more than 24 hours to be marked with a date indicating a maximum 7-day window at 41°F/5°C or below; Day 1 is the day of preparation (for on-site foods) or the day the container is opened (for commercially processed foods). Section 3-501.18 requires that food exceeding its date-marked window be discarded and is a Priority (P) violation on the Food Establishment Inspection Report — §3-501.17 is Priority Foundation (Pf). Freezing pauses the clock but does not reset it — a container refrigerated for 2 days before freezing has 5 days remaining after thaw. Combined foods inherit the oldest date. The label format is flexible (prep-date, discard-date, or color code) but must be consistent across the establishment. Exemptions under §3-501.17(G) include hard cheeses, some semi-soft cheeses, cultured dairy products (yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk), and fermented sausages not labeled "keep refrigerated." The rules exist because Listeria monocytogenes can grow at refrigeration temperatures, and a controlled 7-day window limits the opportunity for Listeria growth during refrigerated storage. For related food-safety frameworks, see our Temperature danger zone guide, our Two-stage cooling of TCS foods guide, our Proper food storage methods guide, and our Time as public health control guide.

Source: FDA Food Code 2022 — §3-501.17 Date Marking and §3-501.18 Disposition · FDA Retail Food Establishment Ready-to-Eat Food Date Marking Guide · CDC Listeria Prevention for Retail Food Establishments