Canned food items? You could be throwing them away too early. Dry goods, such as cereal or pasta? You might be keeping them for too long. Why? Because there is no federal law mandating homogeneous expiration warnings on packaged foods.
But California Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin is trying to bring labeling consistency to her state through AB 660, which would eliminate “sell by” labels and require food manufacturers to use either “best if used by” or “use by” labels. The wide variety of labels currently used “consistently mislead and confuse consumers,” Irwin told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Sell-by dates, for example, are meant to show grocers when to rotate stock, and they are meaningless to the consumer.” (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)
Irwin told the Chronicle that when she recently visited a grocery store, she noticed at least three different types of labels in just one aisle: “enjoy by,” “best before” and “sell by.” She’s seeking the legislation because, according to the Food and Drug Administration, 20% of food waste in the U.S. is attributable to labeling confusion.
Irwin’s bill, which would go into effect Jan. 1, 2025, if approved by the state legislature and then signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, seeks to require that the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Department of Public Health “assist food manufacturers, processors, and retailers” with displaying uniform “food product labels to communicate quality dates and safety dates” in regard solely to safe human consumption.
In layman’s terms, her bill would require that manufacturers, processors and retailers use consistent labeling to better help consumers — “best if used by” would communicate ideal freshness and quality, while “use by” would indicate when it is no longer safe for humans to consume. Gone would be labels that apply only to retailers.
It should be noted that this bill would be for the state of California only, which is why the Consumer Brands Association opposes the legislation. The group, which “champions the industry whose products Americans depend on every day,” argues that it would “make business difficult for out-of-state companies” to distribute to retailers in California.
The association does support federal legislation, though these efforts have failed in the past.
AB 660 is sponsored by two environmental groups — Californians Against Waste and the Natural Resources Defense Council — according to the Chronicle.
The bill has cleared the relevant committees and now heads to the Assembly floor, where its fate is uncertain given industry opposition.
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