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California Replacing ‘Best Before’ Food Labels to Stop People From Throwing Away Good Food

According to the FDA, 20 percent of America’s food waste comes from food thrown out by consumers confused by a label that suggested their food had gone bad.

California is banning “sell by” and “best before” food labels, which are largely unregulated and generally don’t correspond to food safety, and replacing them with ones that actually let people know if their food is still good. The Associated Press reports that the 50 different kinds of date labels seen on packaged food with “sell by” and “best before” are generally used as a guide for when stores should pull products and not whether they’re still safe to eat. The news agency noted that, according to the Food and Drug Administration, 20 percent of America’s food waste—amounting to six million tons per year in California—comes from food thrown out by consumers confused by a label that suggested their food had gone bad. Beginning in July 2026, food will have to be labeled “Best if Used By” to correspond with a product’s peak quality and a “Use By” label that actually does correspond with product safety. The new California rules don’t go as far as some jurisdictions: in 2022, several supermarkets in the U.K. announced that they had removed “best before” dates from hundreds of fruit and vegetable products altogether in order to cut back on food waste and save money.