“Eliminating confusion for consumers by using common product date wording is a win-win
because it means more products will be used instead of thrown away in error,” Jack Jeffers, vice president for quality assurance at Dean Foods, said in the statement released by the grocery manufacturers group.
On Wednesday, those two groups, and Walmart, announced
that they had agreed to whittle that lexicon to just two phrases: “best if used by” and “use by.”
They said they hoped the change, which is voluntary, would be embraced by the vast majority of food manufacturers and producers sometime next year.
Walmart, the nation’s largest grocery retailer, said it strongly encouraged its suppliers to use “best if used by” on products
that might not taste or function as well beyond the specified date, but were nonetheless safe to consume.
“Research shows that the multitude of date labels that appear on foods today are a source of confusion for
many consumers,” Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety and health for Walmart, said in a statement.
At a Gristedes supermarket on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, packages of Sabra Supremely Spicy Hummus are
stamped with “best before” dates, while one shelf up, Tribe Forty Spices Hummus sports a “use by” date.
Across the aisle, packages of meat are dated with language like “best by” and “best before.”
That is because each food company determines for itself how long a shelf life its products should have, and how to communicate that to shoppers.
