Issue with date string

Hi all,

We’re having some trouble with the below - any help would be greatly appreciated!

We are storing a date string in a metafield, then using liquid date filter to convert to a date

It is temperamental across loads, even when the format is the same

Tried many formats eg 14/02/25 | 14/2/2025 | 2/14/25 etc

{% assign today_date = 'now' | date: '%s' %}
{% assign pre_date = product.metafields.product.back-in-stock-date | date: '%s' %}

Thanks for your help! We’re going to take a look now