Get Ready to Throw Away Fewer Groceries

The grocery industry wants to make it clear that you can still eat food that is past its “best by” date.

Good news for anyone who’s ever wondered if they should eat food that’s past it’s “best by” date: the food industry is urging manufacturers to update grocery labeling to make it clear that certain foods are still good even if they’re no longer best.

A barely noticeable change to how food is labeled could save Americans millions

On Wednesday, the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the two largest trade groups for the grocery industry, announced that they’ve adopted standardized, voluntary regulations to clear up what product date labels mean. Where manufacturers now use any of 10 separate label phrases, ranging from “expires on” to “better if used by,” they’ll now be encouraged to use only two: “Use By” and “Best if Used By.”

The former is a safety designation, meant to indicate when perishable foods are no longer good. “Best if Used By” is a quality descriptor — a subjective guess of when the manufacturer thinks the product should be consumed for peak flavor.

As a person who has tossed out multiple condiments because they were past their “best by” date, I would have loved to have known that I could still put ketchup on my eggs or Worcestershire sauce in my stew as long as I was willing to deal with slightly less than peak flavor.

(You know what else has slightly less than peak flavor? Deliberately leaving ingredients out of recipes because you don’t want to spend $3 on a bottle of something you won’t use up before its “best by” date. Which I also do.)

The Washington Post cites data from ReFED indicating that this new voluntary labeling will save consumers $1.8 billion per year in food costs, though who knows how much we’ll be losing in flavor. I’ll be happy to take the risk, if it means less food waste and lower grocery bills.

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