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PORTSIDE CULTURE

CALIFORNIA JUST BECAME THE FIRST STATE TO BAN SELL-BY DATES  
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Merlyn Miller
October 4, 2024
Food & Wine
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_ California's new law prohibits sell-by dates and requires
standardized language for date labels. _

A "sell-by" date probably doesn't mean what you think it does., Food
& Wine/Doan Nguyen/Gett Images

 

On September 28, California became the first state to ban
“sell-by” dates, as Governor Gavin Newsom signed
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aimed at combating food waste. The law prohibits the use of
consumer-facing sell-by dates, and also requires standardized language
for date labels.

Here's everything you need to know.

WHAT IS CALIFORNIA'S NEW LAW? 

The changes will take effect starting on July 1, 2026, and impact all
manufacturers, processors, and retailers of food for human
consumption. To adhere with the requisite language outlined, any food
products with a date label — with the exception of infant formula,
eggs, beer, and malt beverages — must state “Best if Used By” to
indicate peak quality, and “Use By” to designate food safety. By
reducing food waste, the legislation (Assembly Bill No. 660
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may ultimately save consumers money and combat climate change too.

HOW DO SELL-BY DATES CAUSE FOOD WASTE? 

Surprisingly, there aren’t any federal requirements for the language
on food date labels, outside of baby formula. This has produced a wide
range of words and phrases that are employed, including options like
“display until,” “freshest by,” or “best before.” Without
consistent standards, customers are often confused by what these
labels actually mean (so much so that we’ve even published a guide
to interpreting them), and end up throwing out or not purchasing food
that is perfectly fine to eat.

Sell-by dates are a slightly ironic, and unnecessary, cause of food
waste, because they’re not intended to ever be used by consumers.
Instead, these dates are meant to indicate to store employees when
stock needs to be rotated, and are not accurate representations of
freshness or consumability. 

Dr. Bradley Rickard [[link removed]], a
professor of food and agricultural economics at Cornell University
with published research
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the relationship between date labels and food waste, elaborated on the
impact this confusion can have, telling Food & Wine_ _that “some
people will see the sell-by date and will assume this means something
about food safety, and will then throw the item out even though there
[are] unlikely any food safety concerns for many foods for a
reasonable amount of time after the sell-by date.”

Switching to language that either says “Best if Used By” or “Use
By” will also help minimize ambiguity. The former will establish
consistent wording for advising when an item is less fresh (but still
okay to eat), while the latter designates food that should no longer
be consumed due to safety concerns.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF FOOD WASTE? 

These new standardizations might seem like a small shift, but
they’re an important step in fighting the monumental problem of food
waste. ReFED [[link removed]], a non-profit organization fighting
food waste, estimates
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tons, or 33% of all food in the United States, goes to waste. In
California specifically, ReFED calculates
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almost 12 million tons of food were wasted in 2022.

The problem is much more than just edible food that isn’t being
utilized. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA
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calculates that food waste makes up roughly 24% of the materials
discarded in landfills — decaying food then produces methane as it
breaks down, a greenhouse gas that is 

about 28 times more powerful than carbon monoxide when it comes to
trapping heat in the atmosphere. Because food waste also decomposes
quickly, it’s difficult for landfills to trap methane before it’s
released into the atmosphere. 

To put the scale of the problem into perspective, ReFED details
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“In 2021, surplus food accounted for 380 million metric tons of
carbon dioxide equivalent (MMT CO2e). This translates to 6% of total
U.S. GHG emissions, according to the EPA’s Inventory
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the annual equivalent of driving 84 million passenger vehicles or
powering 73 million homes’ electricity.”

In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, the costs of food waste are
passed on to everyone — both households and retailers. Dana
Gunders [[link removed]], the President of ReFED,
explained to Food & Wine that much of this can be attributed to
unclear labeling, and “confusion over date labels accounts for $15
billion of food annually that people are throwing away.

"By requiring manufacturers to use the same phrases for date labels
across products, ReFED estimates that in California alone, this law
will annually save 70,000 tons of food from going to waste, saving
consumers $300 million.”

The good news is that we can all take small steps to reduce food waste
at home. Donate items that are still good to eat, but you know you
won’t consume, and compost organic waste when possible (composting
produces significantly less methane as the waste breaks down with the
help of oxygen). Make sure you’re educated about what all
the different date labels
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mean so you can avoid purchasing food that needs to be thrown out or
you’re unsure about — if you live in California, that might be a
little bit easier now.

* sell-by dates; consumer protection; food waste
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