Food Waste Related to Confusing Labels

Food Waste Related to Confusing Labels

Dates on food products -- sell by, use by, best before – may not indicate the safety of food, and may not be regulated in the way many people believe. The current system of expiration dates can be misleading to consumers who believe they must discard food in order to protect their own safety. Dates are only suggestions by the manufacturer for when the food is at its peak quality, not when it is unsafe to eat. A report prepared by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic reported these findings.

U.S. consumers and businesses needlessly throw away billions of pounds of food every year as a result of America's confusion with food expiration date labeling practices. According to this report, $165 billion of edible food is tossed in the trash annually and 40 percent of U.S. food production never gets eaten.

Confusion over dates, according to a survey by the Food Marketing Institute, leads nine out of 10 Americans to needlessly throw away food. For the average family of four, this could translate to several hundred dollars' worth of food being thrown away every year.