By- Christina Sandra Singh
AB 660, a new Californian bill is proposed to reduce overall food loss and wastage in both supermarkets and at home level where food products are wasted increasingly by retailers and consumers. This wastage is due to vague labeling which causes lack of clarity regarding food safety and quality in consumers. This Food Date labelling Act would make it mandatory for the manufacturers, processors, and retailers to adopt usage of food sold in California, with proper, consistent labelling which would aid consumers to read food labels with two proper expiratory dates. These two dates would assist consumers better in knowing till how long the food products in their pantry are fit for consumption and when to discard them. This bill’s enforcement can help in reducing food waste and saving consumers’ income which is spent in replacing the discarded food with new food products. Even climate and environmental changes would be reduced, that are caused when excess methane gas is emitted into atmosphere by waste food decomposition in the landfill sites. Methane which is a greenhouse gas, 80 time more effective in raising land temperature than Carbon Dioxide, is largely produced when excess of wasted food is dumped into the landfills areas and left for decomposition.
This Act is intended to be implemented from 1st January, 2023, and if it is passed, two mandatory dates of labelling would be mentioned on the Californian food products, one for quality, and the other for safety expiry. “Best if used by” would communicate ideal freshness and quality, while “use by” would indicate when food is no longer safe for you to eat. Gone would be labels that apply only to retailers. In case the space on the labels is limited, the abbreviations like BB and UB would be used.
Through 660AB, Jacqui Irwin, Californian Assembly Member wishes the removal of “sell by” date and utilization of “best if use by” and “use by” dates on every Californian food product. This would standardize the packaged food label in food industries. Moreover, the bill would allow manufacturers to also add “Freeze by” date along with the other two phrases. The current labeling standards confuse and mislead consumers to a whole new level and causes them to misuse food.
According to California Department of Food and Agriculture, and California Department of Public Health, this bill would assist the manufacturers, retailers, and processors to convey proper information to consumers about food quality and safety by providing uniform food date labels on every food item in the market.
It’s not the first time, the related organizations and legislation members have come together to make some useful alterations in the food labeling practices. Earlier a proposed law failed in 2016 resulting into the voluntary program that covers food labels in recent times. But Irwin herself witnessed that the program didn’t create much impact, during her visit to a grocery store where she noticed four different labels, varying from “best before “, “sell by”, and “enjoy by”, in the cheese aisle alone. The meaning of these labels can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
It is to be noted by consumers that Consumer Brands Association opposes this bill given to the fact that this Act will only work for the state of California, and its enforcement will create difficulty for the companies outside this state to distribute food to Californian retailers.