Misunderstanding "Sell By" Date Labels is Costly

This article is best before 11/04/2017.

According to FAO, roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year. This inevitably also means that huge amounts of the resources used in food production are used in vain, and that the greenhouse gas emissions caused by production of food that gets lost or wasted are also emissions in vain. Even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world.

Source: www.worldfoodclock.com

Throwing away still edible food by trusting expiration dates printed on packages instead of one's senses is misleading. This myriad date labels in combination with the careless attitude of consumers who can afford to waste food are striking. In other words, safe food meets its premature demise.

Survey conducted by Harvard's Food Law and Policy Clinic and John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, along with the National Consumer League, the myriad date labels such as "sell by", "best before", "use by", confuse consumers, and the behavior of misinterpretation of date labels among consumers gives rise to increasion of the amount of food that is unnecessarily discarded.

Many people throw away food once the date passes because they mistakenly think the date is an indicator of safety. According to the survey, 84% of consumers at least occasionally discard food close to or past the date on its package. A U.K. study found that 20% of consumer waste occurs because of date label confusion. 

Are date labels standardized? No. Because date labels are not regulated and are inconsistent, consumers face a dizzying array of unstandardized labels on their food products. Remarkably, a recent report found that standardizing date labeling is the most cost-effective solution for reducing food waste, and could help to divert 398,000 tons of the food that is wasted each year.

So, what do date labels actually mean? For almost all foods the date is a manufacturer’s best guess as to how long the product will be at its peak quality, as Roni Neff, a director at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future says, "In the U.S., date labels are not safety labels…they’re used to indicate quality". As for the "sell by" date labels, they tell retailers how long to display their items, which again don't denote when the food will go bad. 

So, it seems date labels are for the reputation of the food, after all. Any manufacturer wouldn't want to be reputed badly, would they?

All in all, best course of action tends to trusting your senses - of smell, sight and taste because food can last long past its printed date, depending on how well it was stored. 

Don't fall for the so-called expiration dates. Fall for yourself - your senses! 

If you are not sure or interested in how to store food safely, please don't forget to read our other upcoming blog on food storage tips!

Please let us know your idea of what date labels mean in the comments below!