Anxious and/or confused when checking the “sell by” date on the carton of eggs or package of chicken at your local Sprouts or Superior Grocers? Well, starting July 2026, California is throwing out those dates stamped on items at the supermarket. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) co-sponsored legislation to make this happen.
The organization lobbied for this change to reduce how much food gets trashed, says Madeline Keating, who works on the NRDC’s food and agriculture team.
“Across the United States, about 40% of our food is going to waste. When that food goes to waste, we're wasting all of the resources that went into growing, transporting, distributing that food, and eventually getting it on our plates,” she explains. “When we don't eat that food, it goes to landfills and incinerators, where it emits harmful greenhouse gas emissions that are detrimental to our health, our environment. And when we waste food, it’s detrimental to our wallets. Food date labels actually are estimated to be responsible for close to 20% of the wasted food in our homes.”
Typically, the manufacturer puts the “sell by” date on products. California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 660 mandates standardization for two date labels.
“The first … is a ‘Best If Used By’ phrase next to the date, which would signify the date after which the food's quality might begin to deteriorate,” she explains. “The second date label is a ‘Use By’ date, which would signify the discard date, after which there's a higher level of risk than consuming the food. So basically, what this leaves consumers with is one date label that's more for quality, and one date label that they can feel confident is for safety.”
Keating says in the 1950s, before the introduction of supermarkets, people didn’t need labels because they knew where their food was coming from. Then as products originated from farther away, labels cropped up so people could understand when it was produced or when they needed to consume it by. However, no standards existed for date labels.
“Today we're in a situation where manufacturers are using what they can, and oftentimes using their best judgment, or putting a date on for peak quality, or making an estimate as to when they think their product is going to be done, or, in many cases, putting it on for a food safety reason. But now with the mandatory labeling, it's going to be consistent across the board.”
While this applies only to California, Keating hopes the federal government will adopt it.
In the meantime, Keating advises, “If your food has been stored at a safe food temperature, if it doesn't have mold, if it doesn't have a bad odor, and it looks and smells right and tastes right, typically, you're in that safe food boundary. … Use your senses, and your food is probably going to be good past that date label.”