A customer scans refrigerated items at a Grocery Outlet store in Pleasanton, California. The state is the first in the nation to ban the confusing “sell by” date on food labels and require wording that more clearly tells consumers if food is safe to eat. (AP Photo/Terry Chea, File),
Without uniform date labeling standards for food, a trip to the grocery store can be a riddle without a clear answer.
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As it stands now, the date labeling system is almost impossible to navigate.
Consumers have to unscramble something like 50 different phrases conveying food freshness. One of them, the ubiquitous “sell by” label, doesn’t even have anything to do with whether food is safe to eat. It merely tells the store how long to display the product. But it’s often misunderstood by consumers who throw away perfectly good food to avoid making their families sick or contributing to the nation’s massive food waste problem.
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In the food-safety bellwether state of California, which can have an outsized effect on food policy as the nation’s most populated state, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed landmark legislation earlier this month banning the “sell by” date on food packaging by July 2026.
The law will require stores to display “packed on” labels on prepared food. Additionally, labels indicating the quality of safety — “best by” or “best if used by” — will be mandatory. “Use by” or “freeze by” will also be allowed.
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California’s law comes as similar efforts around the country to adopt uniform label standards have been halted at the federal level. Supporters are hopeful the legislation will pave the way for uniform date labeling standards at the federal level,
Except for baby formula, there are no uniform federal standards on date labels. The Food Safety Date Labeling Act — S. 1484 and H.R. 3159 — would change that, but there has been no action on the bill May 2023 when it was introduced in Congress by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).
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“Widespread implementation that was basically committed to by industry wasn’t happening,” Erica Parker with Californians Against Waste, who sponsored the bill, told The Associated Press. “Food waste rates are not decreasing, they’re increasing.”
Nina Sevilla with the Natural Resources Defense Council told The AP she thinks California has enough market share to push manufacturers to adopt uniform standards.
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“The hope is that California serves as a model either for other states or ultimately to push action at the federal level,” she said.
Less Confusion = Less Food Waste
Clearer labeling won’t solve America’s growing food waste problem, but it can make a dent, according to ReFed, a non-profit fighting food waste.
ReFed estimates about a third of all food in the United States — about 78 million tons — is thrown away for various reasons every year. That’s about a $422 billion worth of food, and about $30 billion of that is because consumers were confused about what the date labels meant, according to ReFed’s research.
These staggering estimates come amid increasing food insecurity. The USDA estimates about 18 million households were food insecure at some point last year, and in about 6.8 million of them, food was so scarce that some members of the household had to skip meals or otherwise disrupt their daily eating habits.
Record food waste also is occurring as inflation continues to take a bite out of Americans’ food budgets. Food inflation jumped 25 percent from 2019 to the end of 2023, and while monthly increases in 2024 have been more modest, Americans are still paying more for food than they have in 40 years.
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Supply chain disruptions and labor shortages are the big reasons for high food costs, but grocery store food waste is also a contributor, according to a 2022 report from Forbes.
While grocery stores get a tax deduction for food waste that cuts into their profit, the costs of system inefficiencies that contribute to waste are passed on to consumers.
“It’s billed into the price the consumer pays,” James McCann, the former CEO of grocery chains Tesco, Carrefour and Ahold USA, told Forbes.
Unsnarling The Labels
For now, consumers are still trying to answer the riddle of what the different dates stamped on food products mean.
Here’s a cheat sheet — what you need to know about date labels — from the USDA:
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- Best if used by/before: This indicates when the product will be at its best flavor or quality.
- Sell by: For internal inventory management purposes only, the date indicates how long an item should be displayed in the store.
- Use by: This is the last recommended date for consumption of the product while it’s still at peak quality.
- Freeze by: This is the date the product should be frozen to maintain peak quality.
When those dates pass, don’t automatically throw out the food, the USDA says. It should still be safe to eat if it’s handled properly and stored at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below. The agency’s date label guidelines also say that except for infant formula, food should still be safe and wholesome until it develops an off odor and other spoilage characteristics.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
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