Hershey’s now has a ‘best by’ date on the back of their Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup packages.

That’s a big improvement over the date they used to embed in a code on the back.

But a ‘best by’ date doesn’t tell you how fresh something is. It just indicates the last possible moment that it’s still good.

So if you want a seriously fresh Reese’s, how do you figure out when it was made based on the ‘best by’ date?

The trick is to know how long the time frame is between the manufactured date and the ‘best by’ date. The earlier in that time frame you buy it, the fresher the candy will be.

Consumer Press contacted Hershey’s and asked what that time frame was. They dodged the question, several times.

But through an exclusive CP investigation (see video) we found that the freshest Reese’s Peanut Butter cups we could find in retail stores have a ‘best by’ date one year into the future.

If, for example, we are in April of 2016, the ‘best by’ date on the freshest Reese’s would read “04 2017”.

We did find that Reese’s Peanut Butter cups with a ‘best by’ date 10 to 11 months into the future were pretty easy to find at major retailers. They were very fresh tasting.

Finding Reese’s with a ‘best by’ date a full year away was more challenging. However, the one example we did find was the freshest tasting of all.

Do you count big time Reese’s fans among your family and friends?

If so, be sure to share this post with them using the buttons below.

And I’d love to hear from you. If you have comments or questions, leave them in our comments section!