Hmmm “best if used by?” Is this food still good to eat?
I’m currently subscribed to The Hustle e-newsletters. One newsletter I found interesting had to do with the Grocery Industry and the expiration dates you see on your local supermarket’s shelves.
According to the article, the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocery Manufacturers Association are planning to implement a more simpler way to read expiration labels on food. Current labels like “Best if used by” can be seen as pretty ambiguous. As a result, you have consumers throwing away perfectly good food because they think it’s spoiled already.
So why is this change of wording so significant? Well, 91% of consumers toss food away on the daily thinking that its unsafe to eat. By having food manufacturers participate in a two label system, it would be more clear as to when the food as to which consumers are purchasing is good to eat until.
Here’s my take on this:
The two label system would encourage less waste of food products. Consumers would purchase less of a product because the food that they purchase actually lasts longer than initially marketed.
The two label system would encourage safer food consumption habits. As the two label system would make things more clear as to when exactly the food has expired, there would be the potential of less consumers preparing food that isn’t safe to eat/is contaminated.
So does that mean sales would potentially go down for food products? Does that also mean that shelf life of food products would be longer in grocery stores and supermarkets? That would probably slow down the rate of inventory turn over. Obviously this is all a very generic observation, but that could be a possibility.
I’m curious to see how this two label system would affect the food industry and the volume amount that’s produced for the consumer.
