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California bans sell-by dates

foodandwine.com

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Re: California bans sell-by dates

#31

Post by daveoc64 »

doublerabbit wrote: post #18
LeFantome wrote: post #11

This all makes massive sense to me. The people in my life treat any date on food as an expiry date and throw out massive amounts of perfectly edible food. Also, people do not seem to have any concept about the rate at which different food products spoil. Some things can be used way past the dates I see. Others really are going off by then.

Meanwhile we have gotten rid of expiry dates here in the UK. And I have bought fruits and vegetables that all look fine on the outside but inside are rotten. Not only frustrating this then wastes my time and my money. Items do need expiry dates, sugar does not, fresh produce and vegetables do. However, educating that your food isn't instantly bad when it's gone pass would encourage people to waste less food.

> Meanwhile we have gotten rid of expiry dates here in the UK. And I have bought fruits and vegetables that all look fine on the outside but inside are rotten.

It's great! Now the supermarkets can blame us for waste.

Fortunately, every supermarket does still have labels that show a coded date - so that their staff can remove products that are too old.

If you search for the particular store online, you should be able to find their system.

I shop in Sainsbury's usually. Their system is pretty simple. A letter shows the month (A = January, B = February etc.) and two digits show the day of the month.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#32

Post by nfw2 »

LeFantome wrote: post #11

This all makes massive sense to me. The people in my life treat any date on food as an expiry date and throw out massive amounts of perfectly edible food. Also, people do not seem to have any concept about the rate at which different food products spoil. Some things can be used way past the dates I see. Others really are going off by then.

My understanding from the article is that expiry ("use by") dates will still be needed, and sell-by dates are being removed because mean something different from expiry, but consumers (myself included until now) generally misunderstand this.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#33

Post by kmlx »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #21
doublerabbit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile we have gotten rid of expiry dates here in the UK. And I have bought fruits and vegetables that all look fine on the outside but inside are rotten. Not only frustrating this then wastes my time and my money. Items do need expiry dates, sugar does not, fresh produce and vegetables do. However, educating that your food isn't instantly bad when it's gone pass would encourage people to waste less food.

It feels like the solution to this is some sort of in app mechanism to be able to submit evidence back to the grocer that the produce or other perishable was not in condition to be sold, and for them to credit your account accordingly. This saves you a trip back to the store. If they’re selling perishables that have already gone bad, certainly, that sounds like a supply chain failure if they’re offering that for sale…

> to submit evidence back to the grocer that the produce or other perishable was not in condition to be sold

this reminded me of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer tries to return fruit: https://youtu.be/IgZkMRfnomI

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#34

Post by kaikai »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #17
kaikai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a grocery coop and it depended on the vendor. For some, they controlled how much stock we carried and would take back anything that didn’t sell. For things that we ordered directly and chose how much to carry, we were responsible for expired food costs.

This is something I have idly wondered. Where does the expired food go? Both “literally rotting” and “canned good safe for a decade, but we toss it after 12 months”. Landfill? Animal feed? Some amount of charity for the salvageable items? A typical grocery store could produce an incredible amount of daily waste.

We were college students; we ate it ourselves. We also had access to a commercial kitchen, and anything getting close to going bad we’d make into prepared food, which always sold really fast. We couldn’t do that with our milk vendor though, because they would only give us credit for unsold AND unconsumed milk. We had to let the milk go bad, which was a huge waste.

I also used to dumpster dive, and yes, grocery stores throw out a LOT of food. Some places would have bins for pig farmers to collect, most just threw it in the trash. I’ve been held at gunpoint twice for dumpstering. We had an ongoing battle with a manager for a Trader Joe’s, who ended up pouring bleach all over the dumpster every night. It’s wild what people will do in order to keep people from getting something they don’t “deserve,” even when it’s literal trash.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#35

Post by PeterStuer »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #21
doublerabbit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile we have gotten rid of expiry dates here in the UK. And I have bought fruits and vegetables that all look fine on the outside but inside are rotten. Not only frustrating this then wastes my time and my money. Items do need expiry dates, sugar does not, fresh produce and vegetables do. However, educating that your food isn't instantly bad when it's gone pass would encourage people to waste less food.

It feels like the solution to this is some sort of in app mechanism to be able to submit evidence back to the grocer that the produce or other perishable was not in condition to be sold, and for them to credit your account accordingly. This saves you a trip back to the store. If they’re selling perishables that have already gone bad, certainly, that sounds like a supply chain failure if they’re offering that for sale…

It's not a failure. They use treatments to make the fruit look fresh and shiny even when it is near gone.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#36

Post by getwiththeprog »

kmlx wrote: post #33
toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like the solution to this is some sort of in app mechanism to be able to submit evidence back to the grocer that the produce or other perishable was not in condition to be sold, and for them to credit your account accordingly. This saves you a trip back to the store. If they’re selling perishables that have already gone bad, certainly, that sounds like a supply chain failure if they’re offering that for sale…

> to submit evidence back to the grocer that the produce or other perishable was not in condition to be sold this reminded me of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer tries to return fruit: https://youtu.be/IgZkMRfnomI

As Jerry says, with fruit the consumer takes the risk.

I say, if you are buying bad fruit it is time to move on to a new grocer (and not a supermarket).

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#37

Post by getwiththeprog »

PeterStuer wrote: post #35
toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like the solution to this is some sort of in app mechanism to be able to submit evidence back to the grocer that the produce or other perishable was not in condition to be sold, and for them to credit your account accordingly. This saves you a trip back to the store. If they’re selling perishables that have already gone bad, certainly, that sounds like a supply chain failure if they’re offering that for sale…

It's not a failure. They use treatments to make the fruit look fresh and shiny even when it is near gone.

Supermarkets also use ethylene to ripen many fruits (such as bananas) just before they put it out. It is so they can be picked green (unripe) to ship.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#40

Post by kodt »

justin_oaks wrote: post #3

If I see a sell-by date, I only use it to compare between individual items. If there's a shelf with bread and two items have different sell-by dates, I choose the one with the later sell-by date.

Yeah, I assume if it were to be sold by that date, then you still have time after that date that the product remains fresh. Is this not common sense to people?
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