You are probably familiar with food date labels on items at your supermarket or food retailer.  You know: “sell by, use by, or best buy with a date on it” 

 

Yet Greg Jaffe, senior adviser for the office of the Secretary under Secretary Tom Vilsack asked how might various food labels and indicate sell, use, or best buy dates impact food waste and in turn grocery cost.  He evidently is not the only one asking that question as it came up as part of comment on the draft for a National Strategy to Combat Food Loss and Waste. 

 

“We got a lot of comments about the need to standardize date labeling, and the commenters noted that some companies use sell by, some use used by some use best by.  And you know that's done voluntarily.  And they argue that this resulted in food waste and that this was misleading to consumers.” 

 

That led USDA and the Food and Drug Administration in December to issue a joint request for information. 

 

“We regulate meat poultry catfish and eggs through our food safety and inspection service,” Jaffe noted.  “FDA they regulate all the other foods in the food chain, and we're asking thirteen different broad questions that we hope anybody in the public will answer one question or all thirteen of them and provide us information that will give us better understanding of how these eight labels are determined how consumers perceive them and what impact they have.” 

 

Public comment on food date labeling is being accepted federal register through February 1st. 

 

Regulations.gov is where you can submit the comments online.  More importantly the federal register notice identifies the docket number which is FSIS-2024-0021.  You put in that code, or that number, and then it'll take you to the website we're going to collect this RFI information, people can submit to the public docket and get to see other people's comments.  We’ll analyze those comments, we’ll analyze the information we hope we get.  And then the two agencies will talk among themselves and decide should we do anything about this,” Jaffe noted. 

 

“Both agencies currently recommend that the food industry members voluntarily apply a term called “best if used by” as a quality based date food label, which notes the date after which the quality may decline but the food may still be consumed,” Jaffe said.  “That's what we have recommended so the quest do we need to do something more or different based on the information we get.” 

 

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com 

More From PNW Ag Network