Elizabeth Balkan:
We don't want consumers to feel like they're the villains here. A lot of the source reason for food waste is connected to things like date labels. Date labels didn't really exist before the 1970s. And before then people would use their senses, they would use the smell test on milk, they might try a little bit of yogurt, and if something tasted fine, or smelled okay, it didn't smell like it had gone off, they would eat it. So, what you see when you look at a date label that says "best if used by," has nothing to do with food safety, but it's manufacturer suggestion about when this food item is at its peak freshness. Which is inherently a subjective thing. In fact, besides baby formula, there is really no regulation around date labels. So, there's enormous opportunity to reform date labels to be consistent with public health information, and science, and in doing do prevent a ton of food from going to waste.
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