California Is Ditching More Than 50 Confusing Food Date Labels

California is making grocery shopping a little easier by removing all ambiguity from “best by” dates.

On July 1, 2026, the state’s Assembly Bill 660 took effect, requiring food manufacturers to use uniform terminology on product labels. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the bill does away with the more than 50 date-related phrases used on packaging, including “expires on,” “best before,” and “enjoy by.” Instead, nearly all packaged food sold in California will use one of two labels: “best if used by” and “best if frozen by.” The California Department of Food and Agriculture explains that these labels indicate when a product is at or past its peak quality. The rule covers all packaged food except eggs and infant formula. 

Also gone are “sell by” date labels, which were never indicators of safety or quality but were designed to help stores track inventory. Under the new labeling law, retailers can continue to use coded “sell by” dates to track stock rotation, just not in a way shoppers will see.

What the new labels mean for food waste

The nonprofit advocacy organization Californians Against Waste, which cosponsored the bill, hopes it will have a far-reaching impact on a particularly significant issue in California and across the country: reducing food waste.

Californians alone throw out 6 million tons of food waste each year, and the organization believes that confusing food labels are a major contributor to the problem.

“Food is the single most common material landfilled in California, and decomposing food and other organic waste in landfills accounts for 41% of the state’s point-source methane emissions,” the organization shared in a statement about the new bill. “Methane is a potent greenhouse gas responsible for about 30% of the global warming that is now driving climate change.”

The shift is unlikely to impose a significant burden on food manufacturers or require costly production changes. “We don’t need to build some kind of huge infrastructure and invest tons of money to solve this,” Nick Lapis, the organization’s director of advocacy, told the Associated Press. “We just need companies to use the same words across brands.”

Confusing labels have an economic cost, too

Beyond contributing to food waste, confusing date labels have also imposed a financial cost on consumers. Californians Against Waste cites research showing that the average American spends more than $1,300 a year on food that goes uneaten, often because it is discarded while still good due to unclear labeling.

In California alone, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery estimates that roughly 2.5 billion meals’ worth of edible food is wasted and ends up in landfills.

“Food systems inherently depend on natural resources, such as water, land, minerals, and fuel,” the organization wrote. “As such, food systems directly impact our environment, and wasted food is fundamentally a squandering of the natural resources used to grow, process, distribute, and store our food.” 

If adopted more broadly, standardized date labels could help consumers keep safe, edible food out of the trash — and make the most of every grocery trip.