E272: Why getting food date labeling right is so darn tough

Do you pay attention to information printed on food labels? From eye-catching designs companies use to entice you to buy a product to nutrition facts panels to the tiny dates printed on packages. There's a lot going on to be sure. For policymakers, they hope that refining date labels on food packaging will help reduce the amount of uneaten food ending up in landfills. Food Waste is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The Food and Drug Administration and the Food Safety and Inspection Service recently asked for public input on food date labels. So, we decided to gather some experts together to talk about this important policy tool. Roni Neff is a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Senior Advisor at the School's Center for a Livable Future. Her research looks at the intersection of food waste policy, climate change, and food system resilience. Brian Roe is a professor at the Ohio State University Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics. His work focuses on issues including agricultural marketing, information policy, behavioral economics, and product quality. Ruiqing Miao is an associate professor of agricultural economics and rural sociology at Auburn University's College of Agriculture. His research emphasizes sustainability, innovation, and decision making.

Interview Summary

Brian, let's begin with you and let's make sure everyone's on the same page. Can you talk to us a little bit about what date labels are and where they are on packaging. And what is industry required to include in terms of these date labels?

Yes, so date labels, we see them anytime we pick up a food package. Most packages are going to have some type of date label on them. Oddly, federal law doesn't regulate these or really require these other than the exception of infant formula, which is the only federal requirement domain out there. But in the absence of federal regulation, states have kind of done their own thing. About 40 different states require date labels on at least some food products. And about 20 states prohibit or restrict the sale or donation of food past the label date. And even though states that require date labels, manufacturers can still choose the dates. There are no real regulations on them.

So, recognizing that confusion over date labels can lead to unnecessary food waste, Government and industry actors have made, you know, some efforts to try to standardize date labeling language. But nothing terribly authoritative. Now, some states have introduced bills that seek to standardize date labels, with the motivation to try to get rid of and reduce food waste. California being perhaps the most recent of these. In 2024, they passed a bill that prohibits the use of any date label other than 'Best if Used By,' the phrase that goes along with foods where the date represents kind of a quality indicator. And then the phrase 'Use By,", if that date has some implications for product safety. The bill doesn't go into effect until July of '26, so we're going to see if this is going to create a domino effect across other states, across the food manufacturing center or even bubble up and be dealt with at the federal legislation level.

Now, industries tried to do things before. Back in 2017, the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocers Manufacturers Association had a standardized date labeling suggestion that some firms bought into. FDA has given out some guidance about preferring 'Best if Used By' on certain food products to indicate quality. But again, we're all kind of waiting to see if there might be a federal legislation that kind of brings these state labels into check.

Thanks, Brian. And it's really important to know about the policy landscape and the fact that there hasn't been a federal policy across all foods. And it's interesting to see the efforts of, say, in California. I think this begs the question; how do consumers actually process the information of date labels?

This fascinated us too. A very clever person at Ohio State that I work with, Dr. Aishwarya Badiger, led a study I was part of. We enlisted consumers to come into the Consumer Evaluation Lab that we have here on campus and evaluate samples of milk. They were presented with the label of each milk. We gave them a little glass with a nose full of the milk that they could sniff. So, they're looking at the date label, they're given the sample they could smell, and then we kind of asked them, Hey, if this were in your fridge, would you keep it or toss it? But the entire time we actually had them fitted with special glasses that precisely track their eye movements so we could understand kind of which information they were looking at while they went through the whole process of evaluating and then making their decision. Consumers overwhelmingly looked at the date itself on the package and largely ignored the phrase or the words that go along with the date. In fact, for more than half of the evaluations, the consumer's eyes never went anywhere near the phrase.

This is important. And actually, we'll talk about that a little bit more with some of our other guests. So, what are the implications of date label policies?

So the eye tracking research really drove home to me that dates are much more salient than phrases. Although all the policies largely deal with the phrases. Dates give you actionable information. People can look at the date on the label, look at the calendar, and man, that's something they can do something about. They can act based upon that. The phrases are a little bit more ambiguous as Roni will talk about later. I think that people have a hard time interpreting what those phrases really mean. That doesn't mean we should not try to unify those phrases, but rather this is going to be a longer-term investment in educational infrastructure that until those phrases really become salient and actionable to consumers. And then become more of a critical component of the policies. But right now, policies are generally silent on dates. And dates seem to be the real action mover.

Yeah. So why don't we just get rid of all of this? What would be the implications?

Yes. We did this experiment too. Same kind of setup. Had people come in, they had the jug of the milk in front of them. They had a glass of milk that they could sniff. Same thing. And we had a bunch of different milks. We had some that were only like 15 days post pasteurization. Some that went out to like 40 days past pasteurization.

So, the youngest or the freshest had about three days, quote unquote, left on its date label. The 40-day old milk was like two or three weeks past the date. And we did two things. We had them evaluate the milk with the dates on the jugs, and then we had ones where we took the dates and the labels off the milk. Not surprisingly, when they did not have the dates on the milk, they were much more likely to say that they would keep the milk. Even that 40-day old milk, about half of them said, yeah, I'd drink this. I'd keep this if it were in my fridge. But it wasn't a slam dunk. So, our youngest and freshest milk had an odd flavor note. You know, sometimes as the seasons change, feed sources change for cattle, you get an odd flavor note. It's not spoilage, it's just a slightly different note. And when people have the date label, they were much more willing to give that milk a second chance and say that they would keep it. But if the date label wasn't on there, they took that odd flavor note and said, I'm going to toss this milk. So, it's really kind of a nuanced thing. And if you would take those off, I think you're going to get some consumers who are going to kind of freak out without any guidance. And they might have kind of an itchy trigger finger when it comes to throwing away that milk or other products. So, it's compelling. We've seen England, the UK, do this; take dates off of certain products. But I would probably want to see a little more example of how consumers are responding to that before I fully endorse that as kind of a policy movement forward.

Brian, thank you for that. And I have got to say, I was not expecting to have a conversation about the bouquet of a glass of milk. But this is really an interesting finding, and it does help us understand some other things that we're going to talk about. Roni, I want to turn our attention to you. And I know you are someone who's been involved in understanding date labels for a while. And I really appreciate it and I've said it before, but you're the reason I got into this work. I want to understand a little bit more about what are important things to understand about the misconceptions that consumers may have about food date labels? And why does it matter for policymakers?

Well, I'll start with just saying that conceptions are what we know rationally. And it's not the whole picture because as Brian was alluding to a lot of our decision making is going on in our emotions. And like I can tell my son all day long the fact that that milk is okay, he's going to toss it because he doesn't trust it. There's a lot more going on than conceptions. But I want to talk about two misconceptions. The first one is that despite what Brian just said about the fact that these date labels other than infant formula aren't federally regulated, about two in five people think that they are. We just did a national consumer survey in January 2025, and this is one of the findings. And I did that along with Emily Broad Lieb from the Harvard Food Law and Policy Project and Akif Khan also from there, and then Dana Gunders from ReFED. And in addition to this idea that they're federally regulated, I'll say that these kinds of beliefs were most common among those who were 18 to 34, parents with children under age 18, and black and Hispanic consumers. Our earlier work also found that those who think that food date labels are federally regulated are more likely to discard food based on them. All this speaks to a real challenge. And, you know, it kind of makes sense, like if you see something and you trust it, that it's from the federal government. And of course, we all trust the federal government these days. If you trust it, then you're going to respond to it. So that's an implication for food policy. And then the next thing we did also is that we tested understanding of five different food date label phrases: a date with no text, and then two of those phrases accompanied by icon images. And since none of these actually have a federally recognized meaning the correct answer for all of them in terms of the meaning is like other. But we also accepted answers that were aligned with that voluntary industry standard, just to kind of see how people were perceiving it. And, across all of these labels, only an average of 53% of people answered correctly about what these labels meant.

Now, consumers were pretty good at identifying 'Best if Used By' as a quality label. But the real challenge comes in with 'Use By' which under the voluntary industry standards should be a safety label. And more people thought it was a quality label than thought it was a safety label; 44% versus 49%. And so, we need to clear up these misconceptions in support of food safety, in support of food waste prevention. But in order to do that, we need to be able to tell people clearly what the labels mean. And we can't really do that if there's no standardized meaning of what they mean. So, we really need a national standard, and that is the policy implication.

Thank you for that. And I know Ruiqing and I have done some work in this space and in part learning from what you all have done. I'm interested because you mentioned the 2025 survey, but of course you also mentioned the 2016 survey. Are there any big shifts or anything that you want to tell us about changes that you see from those two different surveys?

We asked a number of the same or almost identical questions in those two surveys. And since that time, we've adopted a voluntary industry standard and there's been a lot of education and communication about wasted food. And yet in our survey we actually found that things were going in the wrong direction. Consumer misunderstandings of date labels increased. Those who quote always or usually discard food based on the label: in 2016, that was 37%, and this year it was 43%. And then in terms of belief that these are federally regulated: in 2016 it was 36% and now it's 44%. We're going in the wrong direction despite all these activities, and I don't know why. I think for those who are looking for future research questions, this would be a really interesting one.

This is really disturbing because all of the information that's come out about date labels. I thought people would understand this. And that this is where we would be in a different place. So, this work is really important. So, how did people's response to date labels vary by food item? Did you see any differences? Because this is something that comes up often that people may be more responsive to some food products versus others?

Yeah, indeed. We asked about five different foods, and we showed a bunch of different labels for each food. And the responses did vary both based on the item and based on what label was on it. And I'll start with where caution is needed. Deli meats are one example of where we really want people to pay attention to that label. And while there's no federal standard that label's the best piece of information people has, so they should use it. And we found that only 65% would throw out the deli meat before, on, or just after the 'Use By' label. And the number of people that would respond to it reduced with other labels that were used, and older adults were most likely to disregard those labels. And they may be particularly vulnerable in terms of foodborne illness. So that's when lack of caution leads to risk. On the other hand, when caution leads to waste, we looked at raw chicken, pasteurized milk, lettuce, and breakfast cereal. And for all of those there, like the label is really only telling you about quality, and consumers should use their senses to decide, and knowledge of how that was, stored to decide whether to eat it. And so, the most common out of all five foods, including the deli, the one that they responded the strongest to was raw chicken. And that chicken can be contaminated as we know, but if you cook it, you're killing those bacteria, so it's okay. And averaging across all those different date labels, we found 54% would discard these four foods based on the date. And the piece that was most striking to me was that for breakfast cereal, 43% said they were discarded based on the date. So, we've got some education to do.

Yeah. In the earlier paper I did with colleagues at Cornell, we used breakfast cereal and we were surprised to see how much people willing to throw away breakfast cereal if it were passed to date. There is confirmation and we see this happen in many other products. And we'll definitely talk about some of those product differences with Ruiqing. The last question I'd like to ask you is you found that many consumers thought they knew the meanings of the various food date labels, but they were incorrect. And in some of the work that you've done in the past, you found that many people answered incorrectly even after viewing information about the labels. So even when you educated folks or gave people information, they still made incorrect choices. Why do you think this is, and what should we do about it?

And some people's responses do improve when you show them the information, but it was striking in that study that seconds after having read the definition, according to the voluntary industry standard, people were giving the wrong answer. Even though they had previously said that they thought they understood it. So, to me, this suggests that they already think they know the answer and so they're not tuning in. And this speaks to a real challenge that we're going to have when we do standardize these date labels. How are we going to reach people and capture their attention. Like, if we just change the policy, that does nothing. We've got to reach people and we've got to do it in a sophisticated and well-planned way. And I think the education should also emphasize that misunderstandings are common because that might be something that would help wake people up. But beyond that, we've got to capture their attention. So, you know, dancing clowns, whatever it is that wakes people up.

I have a fear of clowns, so I'm not sure if I want that as a policy recommendation. However...

For the deli meats we want you to be afraid, so it's okay.

Yes, I agree. I agree. One of the things that this conversation has helped us see is that there's some real concerns around whether or not people are paying attention to the label. Or there may be paying more attention to the dates. And even when people are taught or encouraged to think about the dates, there seems to be a mismatch. And Ruiqing, I want to now turn to you because one of the things in the study that we were a part of, there's some questions about differences among people. So, in the paper that we recently published on the relationship between date labels and anticipated food waste, and people's individual orientation to risk and loss, can you tell us a little bit about what some of the key findings of that paper are?

Right. So, the paper is published recently in Applied Economics Perspective Policy. It's one of the official journals of Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). Norbert is the leading author. So, this paper built on the framework of prospect theory and is based on the data from a series of experiments we conducted in Alabama and also the state of New York. We find that consumers do adjust their anticipated food waste by date labels and by how much they tolerate risk and losses. In the experiment, we particularly measured their tolerance to risk and losses. We found that the 'Use By' date labels tend to lead to more anticipated food waste than 'Best Buy'. Maybe this echo what Roni has said. So, people may tend to link 'Use By' with quality and food safety. We also found that the consumers with low tolerance to losses and are associated with higher anticipated foot waste regardless of date labels and the products. So, we can see a heterogeneity of the responses of different consumers to date labels and food items based on their tolerance to losses and risks.

Thank you for that. And I think this is a really important aspect of looking at this set of studies because we see that people are different. They respond differently. And they have different ideas about how they handle losses. This idea that it can be worse to lose a hundred dollars versus to gain a hundred dollars. Or the way we understand how we'll negatively respond versus how positively we respond. Using this economic framework of prospect theory, something that is drawn from actually the psychology literature to better understand how people react to food labels while shopping. What are some key features of this approach to explaining people's behaviors and why do you think it's a good choice? Why do you think it's important to do this?

One of the key features of prospect theory is it divides the possible outcomes of a risky event into two domains. One is a gain domain and one is a loss domain. So, in terms of the food consumption, probably the most likely status quo is do not eat the food items. So, the gain domain might be gaining nutrition from the food item. The loss domain might be the loss of health if the food item is bad. So, I think this framework fits particularly well to describe the consumer's trade off in their mind when they face a food item with a date label that is maybe one day or two days past the expiration date. So, one possibility is you consume this food. If it is good, you get nutrition and if it is bad, you potentially get lost health or lose one day of work or so on. So, I think this model can capture the trade off or the decision-making procedure in a consumer's mind pretty well. And experiments data support the theoretical prediction that loss aversion may affect people's food waste decisions.

Thank you for that. And I think what's one of the sort of take home messages that I've learned out of this process is this heterogeneity, the fact that people are different and may respond differently to these date labels, really does put the onus upon policymakers to think critically what date labels, if we were to use them, or if we think they have an effect, which are the right ones. And so I actually want to open up the question to all of you. In your view, what next steps make sense for date labels to help address the food waste challenges that we see in this country? Let's start with you, Brian.

Ooh, yeah. So, to me a compelling issue that needs to be addressed is how do we get 'Use By' to really translate to be people to be about safety? Is it a different color? I know we don't want to mess with the phrases, but do we just call this safety date and put it in red or put a clown by it if that scares you. Something along those lines to make that stand out. And then on the relevance side, I think it might be out of policy, but perhaps, industry collaboration to really push printed dates to the end of that quality horizon. So that everybody has confidence that they're not going to get undercut by somebody else having an earlier date printed for cereals or for canned goods or something like that. To have a kind of a truce among commercial interests to say, okay, typically canned beans, has this type of 180 days or 360 days. Let's push it to the end of that acceptable horizon so that we don't have unwarranted waste happening as often. Those are two ideas that I've kind of chewed on a lot and think could be positive steps forward. But I'm fascinated to hear what others think.

Thank you, Brian and I really don't like the idea of putting clowns anywhere near this. I want to go to you, Roni.

All right, well first, I'll a thousand percent echo everything that Brian just said. And I'll note also in terms of the 'Use By' date, the label that was most commonly associated with food safety was 'Expires On' by consumers. But that isn't part of what has been under [policy] discussion. But anyway, in addition to echoing that, I'll just say we do need a standardized policy and it has to be accompanied by a well-designed education campaign. And this policy change, it's just a no-brainer. It's not controversial. It's fairly minimal cost. And given the high food prices and the struggles that consumers are having right now, they need every tool that they can to save money and food, and this is one of them.

Great. Thank you, Roni. I'll give the last word to you, Ruiqing.

Yeah. I will echo what Brian and Roni said. So, a well-designed policy and public education campaign. Particularly for the education campaign. I think regardless of if there is a policy change or not, I think it is time to do a public education campaign. Norbert, we have done the research on food waste for almost nine years, right? So, I learned a little bit about the date label's meaning. But still, I cannot change my wife's opinion. When she sees sell by yesterday for the milk, she would suggest we throw it away. But I said this is not for us, this is for sellers. But she wouldn't believe so because I cannot persuade her. But maybe an education campaign from more authoritative institutional federal government can change people's mind as a researcher or like even husband cannot change.

Roni - And can I just add to that, just please. I think that the economics and psychology expertise that all of you have can really contribute to that. Because I think that's a really important point that you're making. And it's not just factual, it's emotional too. And so how do we, you know, get in there and change what people do beyond their knowledge?

Bios

Roni Neff is a Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health & Engineering and the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, an academic center focused on food systems and public health. Her research focuses on wasted food through the lens of equity and public health. She is a co-Director of the RECIPES national food waste research network, and she recently served on the National Academies of Science and Medicine consensus panel on consumer food waste.

Brian Roe is the Van Buren Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics at Ohio State University. Roe has worked broadly in the areas of agricultural and environmental economics focusing on issues including agricultural marketing, information policy, behavioral economics and product quality. He was recently named as a fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and has previously served as an editor for the Association's flagship journal, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. He currently leads the Ohio State Food Waste Collaborative, a collection of researchers, practitioners, and students working together to promote the reduction and redirection of food waste as an integral part of a healthy and sustainable food system, and co-leads the RECIPES Network, a National Science Foundation Sustainable Regional System's Research Network focused on increasing food system sustainability, resilience and equity by addressing the issue of food waste.  In addition to research on food waste, his other recent research includes a USDA funded project focused on local foods and school lunch programs and participation in an NSF-funded multidisciplinary team seeking to understand human-ecosystem feedbacks in the Western Lake Erie basin, including understanding how farms and agribusinesses respond to voluntary environmental programs and how Ohio residents respond to different options to manage Lake Erie water quality.

Ruiqing Miao is an agricultural economist at Auburn University. Miao is interested in sustainability, innovation, and decision-making. His research focuses on the interaction between agricultural production and its environment, aiming to understand and quantify 1) agriculture’s impact on land use, water use, water quality, and biodiversity, and 2) how agricultural production is affected by farmers’ behaviors, public policies, agricultural innovation, technology adoption, and climate change.