Walk the aisles of your local supermarket and you’ll see a variety of expiration date labels: “use before,” “best by,” “expires on,” among others. Not only are the labels confusing, they’re a contributor to food waste. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that confusion over date labeling accounts for approximately 20% of consumer food waste. In an effort to reduce reduce food waste, Cincinnati, Ohio-based supermarket chain Kroger, which has more than 2,700 grocery stores throughout the country, will complete a transition to “Best if Used By” and “Use By” date labels for all of its Our Brands food products in 2020. “Kroger recognizes food waste often takes place in our customers' kitchens simply because product date labels can be confusing, resulting in safe-to-eat food regularly being tossed out,” Howard Popoola, Kroger's vice president of corporate food technology and regulatory compliance, said in a statement. “As Kroger works to reduce food waste throughout our business and our communities, we are standardizing and simplifying Our Brands products' date labels, providing clearer guidance to our customers.” On average, an individual American wastes one pound of food each day, or 225-290 pounds per year, according to a 2018 study published the journal PLOS ONE. That wasted food directly contributes to the climate crisis. The United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that if food waste were a country, its greenhouse gas emissions would rank third in the world, after only the United States and China. The labels, which will apply to dairy, deli, bakery, and fresh and frozen grocery products, will use the term “Use By" to represent food safety and "Best if Used By" for food quality. The “use by” label means the food is no longer safe to eat after that date, while the "best if used by" date guarantees freshness but not food safety. In 2017, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and Food Marketing Institute began recommending the use of “Best If Used By” and “Use By” labels, and earlier this year, the FDA urged food industry companies to standardize the use of the phrase "best if used by" on packaged food labels.
US supermarket company Kroger has launched “Best if Used By” and “Use By” labels for its Our Brands products in a bid to tackle confusion over food labelling, which the FDA has said causes 20% of food waste. A report by the UN, meanwhile, said if food waste was a country, its emissions would be the world’s third biggest. Kroger’s “Use By” date will be for food safety and the “Best if Used By” date for the food’s quality. The company said safe food is often thrown away and standardising its own date labels would offer shoppers clear guidance.