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California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

fortune.com

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Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#51

Post by Suppafly »

vfclists wrote: post #3

Will it be replaced with a "Produced on XXXX" date? If you don't know when a product is considered unsafe, then at least you should know when it was produced to know if it is fresh enough for "YOUR"your consumption. It shouldn't be up to the govt to decide what is or isn't fresh enough for you. That is your choice.

>then at least you should know when it was produced to know if it is fresh enough for "YOUR"your consumption.

Most consumers have no idea how long something is good for past it's produced date though.

>It shouldn't be up to the govt to decide what is or isn't fresh enough for you.

That's sorta what the law is addressing. They are getting rid of meaningless 'best by' type labels that have no bearing on the product quality.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#52

Post by Suppafly »

iterateoften wrote: post #19
vfclists wrote: post #3

Will it be replaced with a "Produced on XXXX" date? If you don't know when a product is considered unsafe, then at least you should know when it was produced to know if it is fresh enough for "YOUR"your consumption. It shouldn't be up to the govt to decide what is or isn't fresh enough for you. That is your choice.

I second this motion 100% Confusing use by labels only benefit corps by allowing them to over buy and then let their inventory spoil on the shelf while they charge full price for year old garbage. If customers knew when their food was made, people would be grossed out and not buy rice cooked 8 months ago from the refrigerated section. it would force corps to have more sales to rotate inventory more often.

>If customers knew when their food was made, people would be grossed out .... it would force corps to have more sales to rotate inventory more often.

That sounds like it would increase food waste because consumers have no idea how long things commercially prepared should be allowed to be sold for and would be basing it on flawed assumption from their own cooking.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#53

Post by s1artibartfast »

Suppafly wrote: post #48
s1artibartfast wrote: post #11

>It will require the use of “Best if Used By” label to signal peak quality and “Use By” label for product safety Who are these people that were confused by "Best by" but understand "best if used by"?

>Who are these people that were confused by "Best by" but understand "best if used by"? Probably the people who have noticed that they aren't used consistently to mean the same thing between brands or even between skus within the same brand.

Which is a inconsistency that has nothing to do with this law.

Now the words are the same, but still determined completely arbitrarily.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#54

Post by iterateoften »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #46
iterateoften wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grocery stores overbuy product to have full shelves not to get the best deal for their customer.

Who said anything about best deal? Either way, throwing out or returning more inventory to make you happy won't help your prices.

Your implying the only way to keep prices down is to continue to overbuy and leave it sit on shelves.

I’m not asking them to throw out more inventory. I’m asking them to buy less to begin with.

Go work in a grocery store for a few months and see how much junk gets thrown away now.

I’m also not asking for lower prices. I’m 100% fine paying the same prices if the quality is there. That’s why now I drive much further out of my way to go to stores that have fresher inventory at the same price. Unfortunately not everyone has that privilege.

The current system of keeping shelves full and throwing away massive amounts of food anyways, while charging the same price as when it’s new is the worst of both worlds.

Your attempting to create a dichotomy in which grocery stores can’t have less inventory and keep prices the same.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#55

Post by Suppafly »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #53
Suppafly wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who are these people that were confused by "Best by" but understand "best if used by"? Probably the people who have noticed that they aren't used consistently to mean the same thing between brands or even between skus within the same brand.

Which is a inconsistency that has nothing to do with this law. Now the words are the same, but still determined completely arbitrarily.

>Now the words are the same, but still determined completely arbitrarily.

That's the point it's not arbitrary under the new law. 'Best by' will mean peak quality and 'use by' will mean the last date safety is guaranteed. Previously 'best by' had no relationship to quality and was just a made up date to convince people their items were spoiling faster than they were. I suppose 'peak quality' for the best by date might feel arbitrary, but at least will need to be somewhat justified now.

I understand that the linked article is paywalled, but it's pretty easy to find other sources that aren't by googling words from the headline.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#56

Post by s1artibartfast »

iterateoften wrote: post #54
s1artibartfast wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about best deal? Either way, throwing out or returning more inventory to make you happy won't help your prices.

Your implying the only way to keep prices down is to continue to overbuy and leave it sit on shelves. I’m not asking them to throw out more inventory. I’m asking them to buy less to begin with. Go work in a grocery store for a few months and see how much junk gets thrown away now. I’m also not asking for lower prices. I’m 100% fine paying the same prices if the quality is there. That’s why now I drive much further ou…

Do you prefer going to the store to buy something and have the shelves empty?

Do you genuinely think they keep a bunch of inventory on the shelf just for fun so they can lose money?

I agree that I'm making a dichotomy, but I don't think it is a false dichotomy.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#57

Post by s1artibartfast »

Suppafly wrote: post #55
s1artibartfast wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a inconsistency that has nothing to do with this law. Now the words are the same, but still determined completely arbitrarily.

>Now the words are the same, but still determined completely arbitrarily. That's the point it's not arbitrary under the new law. 'Best by' will mean peak quality and 'use by' will mean the last date safety is guaranteed. Previously 'best by' had no relationship to quality and was just a made up date to convince people their items were spoiling faster than they were. I suppose 'peak quality' for the best by date might…

My information comes from reading the law. It is shorter than the article. Companies can put a Best by date of whatever they want on the product. They can pull it out of their butt, absolutely no justification required. They don't have to include a safety used by date, unless they already did.

Literally the only thing that changed is the wording allowed if you choose to label with a Best by date.

I link the actual law ab660 elsewhere in this thread if you want to look at it.

I think it's wild how much misinformation and confusion there is about this minor change. I blame this on the legislature trying to hype up their nothing law into some major achievement, and news agencies shamelessly trying to make a story out of it.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#58

Post by mytailorisrich »

iterateoften wrote: post #44
mytailorisrich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe grocery stores should be forced to better their inventory control. Throwing away stuff is a loss for stores. They don't want to and make a lot of efforts not to. The thing is that it is extremely difficult to impossible, especially when consumers demand full shelves all the time. On the other hand, expired items on shelves is just a shoddy practice.

> especially when consumers demand full shelves That’s the issue. The quality of our food is nose diving for appearances. Make regulations that benefit the health of the consumer instead of how many boxes of the same product a corporation can leave sitting on a shelf. If grocery stores have to change and adapt, so be it.

It's not about appearances, it's about supply. When we go to a store or supermarket we want them to have everything we want to buy, whatever the quantity we want to buy, and when they are out of stock we are very unhappy and that hits their reputation as well.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#59

Post by bofadeez »

mrweiner wrote: post #35
bofadeez wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You waste too much. What other people do is not your business.

> You waste too much. You have no information about how much waste they produce. > What other people do is not your business. We cant comment that grocery stores throw out too much food because it’s not our business?

You can't comment on what sovereign individuals, who have no voluntary contractual obligation to you, do with their private property. That's because you have no ownership over their physical flesh. They own 100% of their body.

Re: California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste

#60

Post by ttyprintk »

candiddevmike wrote: post #30
ttyprintk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the confusion is over the price of an item beyond its magical date. The pipelines producing milk and eggs perpetually need shelf space tomorrow, so the date is an ordinal signal. These rules are the same independent of the political persuasion of the farmers and grocers involved.

Do you think this will lead to some kind of price decay scheme based on freshness? I occasionally see something like but nothing regular enough to plan shopping around buying almost expired products.

I think the traditional way shoppers would approach that is haggling —- if obedience to price tags is a newer phenomenon.
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