“Use by” labels on food in the US are to be simplified after the food industry agreed to restrict what can be put on packaging.



For decades confusion over the meaning of the words and dates on food packaging has been a leading cause of household food waste. The sheer variety of terms – best by, best before, sell by, use by, use or freeze by, to name a few – is boggling.

While most Americans interpret these terms as food safety warnings, they are only meant to indicate quality.

In a 2016 survey (pdf) of US consumers, more than a third of respondents said they always discard food close to or past the date on the label, and 84% said they do so at least occasionally. The prevailing mindset is “when in doubt, throw it out”, an attitude that partly explains why households are responsible for the largest share of the 53m tonnes of food (not including farm waste) that the US discards each year.

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Under the new rules the myriad of current terms will be restricted to two – “Best if used by” and “Use by”. The former – the phrasing most easily understood as an indication of quality rather than safety, according to consumer research (pdf) – would become the industry standard for indicating taste and texture. The latter would only be used on highly perishable goods.

A ranking of 27 possible food waste remedies by ReFED, a consortium of businesses, NGOs and others fighting food waste, named standardising date labels as the most effective money saver for both businesses and consumers.



While standardising date labels is virtually costless for business, a recent UK study found that doing so could eliminate 350,000 tonnes of home food waste worth an estimated £1bn every year.

Better education

But why do we need food companies to tell us when it’s best to eat our bagged kale, rice or pasta?

A friend of mine recently told me that he’d eaten pasta meant to be enjoyed during the first Obama administration. Yet it’d be more surprising if that “Best before” September 2011 pasta wasn’t perfectly OK. The dried nature of pasta and other dried grains makes it very hard for bacteria to flourish and start the decomposition process.

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Even if the pasta had gone bad, that would have been clear from how it looked, smelled or tasted. The only non-detectable food-borne illnesses are salmonella and e.coli, and those don’t have anything to do with age. Rather, they come from contamination.

I’m fine eating “vintage” foods, like the 2010 mustard currently in my fridge, because I trust my senses and because I know that date labels are cautious estimates of when a food’s taste or texture begins to fade.

But most people do not. Consumers throughout the developed world, including the UK (pdf), treat date labels as the definitive indication of when a food goes bad. And that’s not how food works.

That we put so much stock in these dates illustrates a profound lack of kitchen confidence and knowledge. We don’t know how long food should or will last. We’re unsure how best to store items, and don’t tend to use our freezers to extend their lifespan. And we don’t trust our senses – of sight, smell and taste – to work out when food has gone from wonky to worse.

Society-wide we need better education about food. A national movement teaching appreciation and knowledge of food’s origins would be more effective than one about preventing food waste because waste avoidance is a natural byproduct of valuing our food.

Behaviour change can’t be adopted – or legislated – into existence. Yet the food industry’s voluntary date label initiative will certainly help. Structural adjustment and the desired shift in consumer mindset are both needed and, fortunately, not mutually exclusive. Both changes can and must happen in unison.

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