“Sell by” labels on perishable products are now banned in California, having reached their expiration date under a new food labeling law that came into effect Wednesday.

The bill, which passed in 2024, standardizes such labels in a bid to reduce consumer confusion and cut food waste in the state.

It limits manufacturers to a few terms: “best if used by” or “best if frozen by” to indicate when a food item is at its peak quality, and “use by” or “freeze by” to indicate when a food item is no longer safe to eat. The law applies to all products except for eggs and infant formula, according to California’s Department of Food and Agriculture.

The bill addressed what federal and state officials have long said can be a source of confusion for consumers: when to toss out aging food products. In the United States, there are roughly 50 variations of date labels.

The wording of these labels is usually shaped by the policies of individual states, each with their own requirements that vary across food products. Infant formula is the only product with standardized, federally regulated date labels in the United States.

More than one-third of food sold nationwide ends up going to waste, in part because consumers throw away food they think has gone bad when it hasn’t, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For the most part, “dates are not an indicator of the product’s safety,” the department said.

Experts say the term “sell by” is generally for retailers to know when to rotate inventory, compared with labels like “best if used by” and “use by,” which indicate quality.

Clarifying food date labels can “greatly aid in curbing food waste that often is discarded prematurely,” California’s Department of Food and Agriculture said.

Under the state’s bill, “sell by” dates can still be included on products as long as they are “coded” — information that is aimed at retailers rather than consumers.

There will be a grace period for manufacturers and retailers to finish selling products made before July 1, according to Californians Against Waste, an advocacy group that cosponsored the bill.

The organization said on its website that it hoped the bill would catalyze similar legislation in other states. New York state lawmakers recently approved a similar law, and legislation addressing food labeling has been proposed in several other states.

Opponents of the bill, including agriculture industry groups, had argued that the legislation would make it difficult for companies to do business across state lines.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Yan Zhuang
c. 2026 The New York Times Company