Foods that spoil and go bad, like seafood, should have use by dates. Not only is this a matter of safety, but it also helps consumers to know how long a product they buy has been sitting around at a retailer and, therefore, how long they can keep it at home before eating. Other foods, like fruits, don’t really need dates as consumers can see and easily assess freshness for themselves.

That said, I find Carrefour’s alternative wording very confusing and I am not sure they represent a sensible step forwards.

It all depends on what you are trying to say. “Use By” implies the food is not edible after the date specified. “Sell By” tells you when the retailer needs to move the product off the shelf, but not how long it is safe for consumers to eat. And “Best By” could mean the product is still safe, but loses some desired quality — flavor, moistness, dryness, or whatever — or is some other way degraded from its optimum condition. The bottom line: these phrases aren’t really all that interchangeable. I suppose there are packaging technology solutions that might help here, but they would raise the cost of food. And no matter what verbiage the industry settles on, the only real fix for reducing food waste is to change consumer behavior. If we ate everything we bought within a day or two of purchasing it would be a different story. But we don’t. We buy more than we can consume, store it and one day, when we are in a manic cleaning fit, we discover… Read more »

If you take a look at various product forums, you will find all kinds of confusion around verbiage that companies use to describe various levels of “expiration.” When I recently purchased an item that I noticed was missing an expiration date (yet had a date-like number faintly stamped on the package), I contacted the company via email and was told that, for their products, the retailer is supposed to look at the stamped number (evidently the production date) and determine a “best by” date, then place a tag reflecting that date on the package. Oops. That didn’t happen but how convoluted, right? When I did the math, I realized the product was right on the cusp so I returned it. Consumers don’t want suggestions or vague descriptions. They want definitive “do this” or “don’t do that” instructions that are universal. Why should a box of crackers be different from a package of meat? Both have a date past which consumers shouldn’t eat the food or wouldn’t enjoy it if they did. Marketers and retailers should… Read more »

It is unfortunately that we can’t rely on “good judgement” by consumers. For non-perishable foods, I think it is still prudent to have a date on the package that estimates when the product is best for eating, as most foods will deteriorate over time even in sealed packages.

I would avoid putting “sell by” on any package, as that is only for the retailer and it will confuse consumers. A sell by date could be printed in more discrete/coded format.

As for the best terminology for consumers, I think all of the suggested phrases are clear to me.

This is surely focusing on the wrong thing, the whole idea of the wording on the packaging is to ensure that customers get the best possible quality and enjoyment from their purchase. Retailers need to improve their own supply chain operations to reduce waste and not change or blame wording for their own shortcomings. If they go down this route it is a slippery slope to selling poor-quality and even potentially dangerous foods.

Good supply chain solutions can reduce waste dramatically, improving profitability for the retailer and quality for the consumer. Companies need to get it right within the business first and then see if a change in wording is needed. And don’t fudge the problem by removing these valuable labels.

We have got to ensure food safety as food-borne illness is on the rise. Poor product rotation is still an issue in both food stores as well as restaurants. So I’m not certain there is a quick fix to the current challenges of sell-by dates without impacting food safety. I say store-level and restaurant kitchen product rotation training and execution is key for now.

The solution is a standards body selecting a definition and staying consistent with it. In lieu of that, however, rewording won’t help much and the “best by,” “use by,” and “sell by” definitions that Ryan outlines should be fine. Ideally, all rotten or unsafe food would be removed but removing food based on food expiration dates are very much a manual process — putting pressure on grocers to find ways to simplify the process.

Interestingly those tomatoes labelled fresh might be sitting en route in a cargo container for over a month while potatoes can be stored for up to nine months. Not sure how much impact we would be able to see.

All of the posts had good points and suggestions. I don’t know how to fix the problem or make these labels more understandable, but here’s the commonsense reality: Shoppers look for a date on a package. No matter what the wording and advisory is, they will not buy the product when that date is coming up soon. In fact, they will rummage through the packages to find the latest date. How do you fix THAT?