Assembly Bill 660<\/a> was signed into law and goes into effect July 1, which ultimately will reduce the phrases allowed on packages to just two. <\/p>\nWhat AB 660 will do<\/p>\n
The bill requires food manufacturers to use only two food date labels to mark the quality or safety of a food product in the state of California. <\/p>\n
The two phrases are: <\/p>\n
\u201cBEST if Used by\u201d or \u201cBEST if Used or Frozen by,\u201d which indicates the peak freshness, or quality, of a food item. \u201cUSE by\u201d or \u201cUSE by or Freeze by,\u201d which indicates when a food item is no longer safe to eat. <\/p>\n
Starting next month, the law will prohibit the sale of any food product that isn\u2019t labeled with either phrase \u2014 this pertains to products manufactured on or after July 1, 2026. So you might still see a few different phrases on food products that were already on the shelves or in a retailer\u2019s stock. <\/p>\n
It also prohibits the use of \u201csell by\u201d dates on food packaging, but it does allow coded \u201csell by\u201d dates that retain stock rotation information for retailers. <\/p>\n
Why did California previously have so many food date labels?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a common misconception that the federal government regulates the dates on food. With the exception of infant formula, that isn\u2019t the case, Collins said. <\/p>\n
The United States is one of the only countries that doesn\u2019t have a federal road map for state labels on food, \u201cso that doesn\u2019t mean every country does it well, but they all have something,\u201d said Emily Broad Leib, clinical professor of law and director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. <\/p>\n
Starting in the late 1950s and accelerating in the 1970s, several states enacted laws that required a date label on certain foods. But that effort didn\u2019t set any nationwide standards for what it meant or what the language was, Broad Leib said. <\/p>\n
At the time, the focus of the label was on freshness or how long a food product had been sitting on the shelf. <\/p>\n
\u201cOver time, a large majority of consumers interpreted those as safety dates, and so we have this real mismatch [of interpretation],\u201d Broad Leib said. <\/p>\n
Who enforces Assembly Bill 660<\/p>\n
The primary responsibility for enforcing Assembly Bill 660, an amendment to the California Retail Food Code, falls on local enforcement, a spokesperson with the California Department of Public Health said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe California Retail Food Code establishes health and sanitation standards for retail food facilities, which are enforced by local health agencies during routine inspections,\u201d according to the state agency. <\/p>\n
That means the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which is the local enforcement agency for these requirements in the region, will be in charge of monitoring whether businesses are following the law.<\/p>\n
When violations are observed \u201cduring routine inspections or complaint investigations, it would be noted on the facility\u2019s Official Inspection Report, and appropriate enforcement action would be taken by Public Health,\u201d the Los Angeles Department of Public Health told The Times via email. <\/p>\n
Broad Leib said she strongly believes this law is a step in the right direction. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe should have only two labels, and it should be clear which one is for safety and which one is for quality, so that consumers [in California] can make better economic and safety decisions,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
At this point it\u2019s unclear what kind of training local health inspectors are getting to not only stop potential violators, but also to identify whether businesses are using the better of the two labels for each specific product, Broad Leib said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be something to watch out for or future, maybe, state-level guidance on how they should do these inspections,\u201d she said. \u201cOr even guidance to businesses around making the decision of which label to use.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve decided to make a sandwich and reach for your loaf of bread, but the \u201csell-by date\u201d on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3899,7,8707,9,8,7948,152170,152171,413,152169,152174,721,152173,10383,3651,4720,315,152172],"class_list":["post-375660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-assembly-bill","tag-california","tag-california-department","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-consumer","tag-different-label","tag-emily-broad-leib","tag-food","tag-food-date","tag-health-law","tag-law","tag-peak-quality","tag-phrase","tag-product","tag-public-health","tag-time","tag-unintentional-food-waste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}