What color of twist tie or tab is used by most U.S. bread suppliers on loaves of bread baked on Wednesdays?

The different colored ties or tabs are used in the U.S. by many bread companies to indicate when the bread was baked. The standard is as follows:

• Blue: Monday
• Green: Tuesday
• Red: Thursday
• White: Friday
• Yellow: Saturday

It's easy to remember which is fresher because the colors are used in alphabetical order.

There is no color for Wednesday or Sunday and the assertion is that since a 5 day work week is already accounted for, bread is not baked on these 2 days.

The system is used primarily by grocers to determine which bread needs to be rotated out of stock.

There are some exceptions to the color code rule, as might be expected. Some companies have only one color of tab and print a date on the tab. Others print a date on the package itself. That date is a "sell by" date rather than a date that the bread was baked.

And then there are the rogue companies that use their own color codes and make life difficult for the grocers.

And of course if you don't want to remember colors or read dates you can always use the Charmin method to determine freshness... Squeeze the loaf!!