Poultry & meat
Tyson Batch Code Decoder
Tyson stamps fresh chicken with a four-digit Julian production date followed by plant, shift and line identifiers so QA can trace any unit back to a specific half-hour of the production schedule within seconds.
Decode your Tyson code
Format: YJJJ + plant + shift + line. Example:
Enter a code above to decode the production date.
Format
YJJJ + plant + shift + line
Example
6099A12
Year digit 6 + day-of-year 099 (April 9) + shift A + line 12.
Typical freshness
9 days
from production date
About Tyson batch codes
Tyson Foods has been printing Julian dates on fresh poultry packaging since the 1970s and the format has barely changed: one digit for the year, three digits for the day of year, then one or two alphanumeric characters identifying the plant, the shift, and the packing line. A fresh chicken breast stamped 6099A12 was packed on the 99th day of a year ending in 6 — April 9, 2026 in the current decade — during the A shift, on line 12. Refrigerated at 40°F or below the product has a best-by window of roughly nine days from that production date, which is why the recommendation printed alongside the Julian code is usually "use or freeze by day [DOY + 9]". To decode a Tyson Julian date, read the first digit as the last digit of the year (2016 or 2026 for a 6), then read the next three digits as the day of year and convert — this site's converter handles that instantly. Tyson frozen product uses the same Julian format but with a longer shelf life (typically twelve months), and processed cooked product uses YYJJJ (five digits) rather than YJJJ. If the stamp you are looking at has more than four numeric digits before any letters, you are almost certainly reading a frozen or cooked product and should use the YYDDD interpretation instead. Tyson's decision to keep the four-digit Julian comes down to space on the packaging — the tamper-evident film on a tray of chicken breasts only has room for about twelve characters of high-contrast ink-jet printing and the Julian gives them six of those characters back for the plant and line identifiers that make traceability work during a recall.
Need the general technique for any package? See how to read a Julian date code. For the regulatory background on lot traceability, read the manufacturing guide, or convert any date on the converter.
This decoder is based on Tyson's publicly documented code format. Manufacturers can change codes without notice — treat the result as an estimate and check any printed best-by date.