SACRAMENTO, California — California became the first state in the nation to ban "sell by" date labels on food packaging as a landmark law aimed at reducing consumer confusion and cutting food waste took effect Wednesday.
The new law, signed in 2024, requires food manufacturers selling products in California to use one of two standardized labels: "Best if Used By" to indicate peak quality, or "Use By" to indicate product safety. The familiar "sell by" stamp — long a source of household debate over whether food is still safe to eat — is now prohibited on packaging sold in the state.
Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, the Democrat who authored the bill, said food manufacturers can choose to use either label or both. The goal is to eliminate the patchwork of more than 50 different date labels currently found on packaged food sold in stores, which experts say act as guides for retail inventory rotation rather than indicators of food safety.
About 80% of consumers in the United States throw away food due to confusion over date labeling, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Nearly 20% of the nation's food waste — approximately 6 million tons of unexpired food discarded annually in California alone — is tied to unclear date labels.
Nick Lapis, director of advocacy at Californians Against Waste, which co-sponsored the bill, said food labels are the leading cause of household food waste and that food banks have long struggled with donated items being rejected because "sell by" dates were misinterpreted as expiration dates.
"We don't need to build some kind of huge infrastructure and invest tons of money to solve this. We just need companies to use the same words across brands," Lapis said.