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I seriously doubt that this will happen, but see the comment below that says we can submit comments.
"Comments can be submitted to the FSIS and the FDA at this portal from now until February 3, 2025." https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2024-Z-0025-0002
https://www.tasteofhome.com/article...utm_campaign=news,trends,author: marnie shure
Given that it’s the most populous state in the U.S., California has a lot of influence in politics, culture and innovation—right down to the food we eat. When the Golden State enacts some sort of regulation on the food industry, it’s often easier for manufacturers to simply roll out the changes nationwide to comply with the country’s largest market.
The state of California recently passed a bill, scheduled to take effect in 2026, that bans ambiguous expiration labels on food packaging. From then on, “sell by” and “best before” will not be allowed to appear on the label.
We now see that happening at the federal level, as the FDA and USDA mull a change to expiration dates on food packaging.
Why are expiration dates so confusing?
There are many phrasings that get stamped on various food packages: “best by,” “best if used by,” “best before,” “sell by,” “use by” and so on. None of these mean the exact same thing—and none of them are regulated at the federal level. This understandably leads to confusion among consumers, who throw out food that’s still safe to eat past its sell-by date. Food waste has increasingly become an issue, not to mention all the money wasted on food that goes uneaten.
In California, the label “Best if Used By” will be required to indicate that the product will lose peak quality after the given date (but will likely still be safe/good to eat), and “Use By” will be the only label related to product safety after the given date. The term “Use By” will be the only label that amounts to an “expiration date” in the strictest sense.
California state representative Jacqui Irwin stated that this bill will be “a monumental step to keep money in the pockets of consumers while helping the environment and the planet.” Now, the federal government is on board, too.
Food Business News reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have issued a joint request for public feedback regarding food labeling. These agencies know that the current, relatively unregulated labeling system is confusing, but in order to potentially improve the situation, they have to know what’s tripping us up the most.
Right now, the recommendation from both FSIS and the FDA is for food manufacturers to voluntarily apply the “Best if Used By” label, “which notes the date after which quality may decline but the product may still be consumed.”
A 2019 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that “Best if Used By” is understood by most consumers to convey the quality of an item, and “Use By” is understood by a good proportion of consumers to convey the safety of an item. However, “many had different interpretations.” Whatever regulations are adopted, the public would need to be educated on the meaning of each label.
Comments can be submitted to the FSIS and the FDA at this portal from now until February 3, 2025.
How this change to food labels could help us
In June, the Biden-Harris administration released the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics, aiming for a 50% reduction in food waste and food loss by 2030. Clarifying our food labels won’t get us all the way to that goal, but it would have a significant impact. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the retail, food service and residential sectors wasted 66 million tons of food in 2019, with an additional 40 million tons of waste generated at the manufacturing level. Squeezing even a few extra days out of our grocery haul could keep food out of landfills—and keep us from wasting a chunk of our personal budgets.
"Comments can be submitted to the FSIS and the FDA at this portal from now until February 3, 2025." https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2024-Z-0025-0002
https://www.tasteofhome.com/article...utm_campaign=news,trends,author: marnie shure
Given that it’s the most populous state in the U.S., California has a lot of influence in politics, culture and innovation—right down to the food we eat. When the Golden State enacts some sort of regulation on the food industry, it’s often easier for manufacturers to simply roll out the changes nationwide to comply with the country’s largest market.
The state of California recently passed a bill, scheduled to take effect in 2026, that bans ambiguous expiration labels on food packaging. From then on, “sell by” and “best before” will not be allowed to appear on the label.
We now see that happening at the federal level, as the FDA and USDA mull a change to expiration dates on food packaging.
Why are expiration dates so confusing?
There are many phrasings that get stamped on various food packages: “best by,” “best if used by,” “best before,” “sell by,” “use by” and so on. None of these mean the exact same thing—and none of them are regulated at the federal level. This understandably leads to confusion among consumers, who throw out food that’s still safe to eat past its sell-by date. Food waste has increasingly become an issue, not to mention all the money wasted on food that goes uneaten.
In California, the label “Best if Used By” will be required to indicate that the product will lose peak quality after the given date (but will likely still be safe/good to eat), and “Use By” will be the only label related to product safety after the given date. The term “Use By” will be the only label that amounts to an “expiration date” in the strictest sense.
California state representative Jacqui Irwin stated that this bill will be “a monumental step to keep money in the pockets of consumers while helping the environment and the planet.” Now, the federal government is on board, too.
Food Business News reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have issued a joint request for public feedback regarding food labeling. These agencies know that the current, relatively unregulated labeling system is confusing, but in order to potentially improve the situation, they have to know what’s tripping us up the most.
Right now, the recommendation from both FSIS and the FDA is for food manufacturers to voluntarily apply the “Best if Used By” label, “which notes the date after which quality may decline but the product may still be consumed.”
A 2019 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that “Best if Used By” is understood by most consumers to convey the quality of an item, and “Use By” is understood by a good proportion of consumers to convey the safety of an item. However, “many had different interpretations.” Whatever regulations are adopted, the public would need to be educated on the meaning of each label.
Comments can be submitted to the FSIS and the FDA at this portal from now until February 3, 2025.
How this change to food labels could help us
In June, the Biden-Harris administration released the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics, aiming for a 50% reduction in food waste and food loss by 2030. Clarifying our food labels won’t get us all the way to that goal, but it would have a significant impact. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the retail, food service and residential sectors wasted 66 million tons of food in 2019, with an additional 40 million tons of waste generated at the manufacturing level. Squeezing even a few extra days out of our grocery haul could keep food out of landfills—and keep us from wasting a chunk of our personal budgets.
