Historical Events  People
Al Capone

Alternate:
The FDA was the first to put expiration dates on milk bottles

Current:
Al Capone was the first to put expiration dates on milk bottles

Who was the first to put expiration dates on milk bottles?

It sounds like a joke, but it's true - Al Capone was the first to put expiration dates on milk bottles, and not the FDA which most people would assume to be the case.

When the prohibition ended, he had the trucks and infrastructure already in place to distribute drinks other than the banned ones which had been so lucrative, so for business reasons he switched to milk.

Al Capone was sent to Alcatraz for tax evasion, because he apparently never personally murdered anyone and the blame for those which he was suspected of being behind, including the notorious St Valentines Day Massacre, could not be pinned on him.

A kind gangster

During the depression, Al Capone was the first to open a soup kitchen to feed the poor. He personally helped served the meals.

The story goes that a family member in Chicago became ill from drinking expired milk, so when he moved into the milk business ensure a law was passed to indicate the expiration date as a safety measure.

You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. - Al Capone