The California Legislature has sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a bill to ban sell-by dates on food packaging, legislation aimed at clearing up consumer confusion and cutting food waste. While the author has toned down the bill to remove food and agriculture opposition, she says the measure positions California as a national leader on the issue and puts pressure on Congress and federal agencies to act.
Environmental groups backing the bill hailed its passage as a win for improving food security and reducing climate emissions.
After years of negotiations with industry groups, Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Camarillo, settled on two alternatives to the sell-by label, addressing both food quality and food safety. Food producers could adopt “best if used by” to indicate freshness or “use by” to advise consumers on when the food is likely to expire.
Irwin has argued that sell-by dates tell grocers when to rotate stock and are generally meaningless to shoppers. She cited a 2022 study in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Research attributing 20% of all U.S. food waste to consumer confusion.
Asm. Jacqui Irwin, D-Camarillo“For too long Californians have been misled by unclear labels on food,” she said during a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing in June. “Stores offer products with all sorts of different labels, like ‘expires on,’ ‘best before,’ ‘enjoy by,’ ‘sell by,’ just to name a few.”
The legislation addresses “a systemic cause of food waste with implications for our environment, our health and our economy,” according to Andrea Collins, a senior food systems specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a cosponsor on the bill.
“Too many of us look at a container in the fridge or pantry and see the date has passed and decide to toss it rather than getting sick,” said Collins. “We're left to guess at what is meant.”
ReFED, an organization advocating for policies tackling food waste, claims standardized labels would lead to a net financial benefit of nearly $4 billion for Americans. AB 660 proponents argue less food going to landfills would mean more for the eight million Californians facing food insecurity and would reduce methane emissions contributing to climate change.
The findings and California’s push for standards have put pressure on Congress and the Biden administration. After AB 660 stalled in the agriculture committee last year, Irwin drafted a resolution calling on the federal government to adopt the federal Food Date Labeling Act of 2023 to standardize labeling.
California has already taken steps to update the labeling as well. In 2017 then-Gov. Jerry Brown enacted a law to promote voluntary labeling standards, with the goal of phasing out use of “best-if-used-by” and “use-by” labels by mid-2026. Food industry trade associations stepped up with a commitment to adopt the new standards by 2020.
Yet comprehensive implementation has fallen short and the inconsistent labeling continues to confuse consumers, according to Erica Parker, a policy advocate at Californians Against Waste, a cosponsor on the bill. She claimed Californians still throw away nearly six million tons of food waste every year.
The environmental groups returned to the Capitol last year to partner with Irwin on AB 660 to turn the voluntary approach into a state mandate. They seized on new research from The Food Industry Association, known as FMI, which recommended the two alternative terms to “sell by” that Irwin adopted in her bill.
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Food and agriculture groups, however, heavily opposed the initial version of the measure.
Dennis Albiani, Consumer Brands AssociationDennis Albiani, a lobbyist for the Consumer Brands Association, warned at the time that “whenever there's a mandate, there's always liability.” Adding a single-state ban would disrupt regulatory and statutory reviews for both USDA and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The state and federal regulatory systems get considerably more complicated with eggs, he explained.
Representing the California Grocers Association, Taylor Roschen explained the challenge of training grocery staff to interpret potentially thousands of different coded versions of “sell-by” indicators.
Irwin worked with industry on the concerns and returned in June this year with an amended bill, exempting infant formula, eggs and pasteurized in-shell eggs. That led groups representing egg farmers and milk producers to drop their opposition. Other amendments shifted the rest of the groups to neutral as well.
Albiani told Agri-Pulse in an interview the coalition was successful with inserting a provision sunsetting the bill if Congress passes its own legislation. Irwin agreed to delay implementation as well and to relax the rules on food packaged in grocery stores, such as for potato salad and sandwiches. She also shelved a separate measure that would have tasked CalRecycle with establishing new labeling requirements without legislative oversight.
Another important amendment relaxed the mandate further, allowing food packagers to opt in to the provisions. They could still use food labeling codes instead, but if they decide to add a date they must adhere to the new requirements.
In a statement to Agri-Pulse, John Hewitt, senior vice president of packaging and sustainability at the Consumer Brands Association, applauded AB 660 for recognizing the industry-led effort to reduce confusion over the dates.
“The makers of America's trusted household brands have always been committed to increasing consumer transparency and reducing unnecessary food waste," said Hewitt. "We appreciate Assemblymember Irwin’s leadership to ensure the bill balances the needs of the consumer and complexity of changing labels.”
With the amendments, AB 660 quietly advanced through committees and floor votes, with Assembly Republicans voting against the measure and little opposition elsewhere. If Newsom signs the bill, it would codify the standard into law for California, which encompasses a significant portion of the U.S. consumer marketplace. Proponents hope that would pave the way for a federal law.
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