Changing the wording about expiration dates on perishable food items – which is currently unregulated and widely variable – could help reduce food waste, based on a recent Cornell University-led study.

A survey of consumers found that certain wording – “best by,” versus “best if utilized by,” for instance – had the potential to cut back food waste, but that results varied depending on the sort of food in query. Predictably, the more perishable a food item, the greater the likelihood of discarding it.

This work has implications for each policy proposals regarding date labels and the market impacts of reducing food waste.

“Some consumers might do a sniff test to see if food remains to be good, while others might just take a look at the date label and throw it away,” said Brad Rickard, professor within the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and senior writer of “Date Labels, Food Waste and Supply Chain Implications,” which published within the European Review of Agricultural Economics.

“And the reality is, with only a few exceptions, these date labels which might be utilized in america usually are not regulated,” Rickard said. “And they don’t seem to be food safety dates; they’re just food quality dates.”

Co-authors were Shuay-Tsyr Ho, assistant professor of agricultural economics at National Taiwan University; Florine Livat, associate professor of economics on the Kedge Business School in Talence, France, and a former visiting scholar at Dyson; and Abigail Okrent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Rickard and his colleagues found that the words “use” or “use by” looked as if it would speak more on to the perceived food safety implications of consuming food past the date listed on the package, and will due to this fact result in a rise in food waste. The wording “best by” looked as if it would refer solely to food quality beyond a certain date and led to less waste.

The motivation for this work, Rickard said, stems from the “wild west” landscape of food date labels which is predicted to be driven, partially, by manufacturers’ desire to sell more product. Nearly a yr ago, the Food Date Labeling Act was introduced in each the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in an effort to cut back the discarding of protected food.

You go into the yogurt section on the food market, and also you see many various labels – some say ‘use by,’ some say ‘best by,’ some say ‘best if utilized by’ or ‘fresh by,’ ‘sell by.’ And there are not any rules about this.”

Brad Rickard, Professor within the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management

Within the survey, the researchers asked participants to rate, on a 1-5 scale (5 being extremely likely) their likelihood of discarding 15 different food and beverage items that were sooner or later past the stated date code. In the primary section of the survey, the query included only the expiration date code (i.e. date/month/yr); the second section repeated this exercise but with each a date code and a date label that included one among 10 different wording variations.

4 of the date label variations followed those which were widely adopted within the U.S.: “Best if utilized by”; “Best by”; “Use by”; and “Sell by.” The opposite six featured a date label and a biosensor, a visible indication of food quality. Biosensors – which detect microbe growth and alter colours accordingly – are popular in some European markets, but usually are not as common within the U.S.; for the survey, the researchers selected biosensors with the colours green (fresh), blue (less fresh) and purple (past fresh).

The 15 food items chosen for the survey – including bread, cookies, chicken, packaged salad greens and canned soup – all typically use date labels. Survey results showed a rise in discard intentions with the “Use by” and the “Best if utilized by” date label, inferring that food with these date labels were more often discarded and replaced.

Rickard also said the novelty of the biosensor technology resonated with the U.S. survey participants, and when it was presented to participants as green (fresh), it led to substantially lower discard rates.

Certainly one of the unintended consequences of a more uniform approach to this point labels, the researchers note, is a possible increase in food waste depending on the wording of the label, in addition to a rise within the re-purchasing of perishable items high in protein, fat and cholesterol.

“In case you tell all food manufacturers that each one their ‘best by’ dates at the moment are going to ‘best if utilized by’ dates, which may actually increase food waste,” Rickard said.

This research was supported by a grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, in addition to through the USDA Hatch Project NYC.

Source:

Journal reference:

Rickard, B.J., et al. (2022) Date labels, food waste and provide chain implications. European Review of Agricultural Economics. doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbac021.