Recently signed into law, California Assembly Bill 660 standardizes the use of “Best if Used By” and “Use By” dates on food labels, and prohibits the use of “Sell By” and other, inconsistently used dates. 

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has developed a decision tree of 10 questions to help food firms decide what information to give consumers besides use-by or best-before dates to ensure food safety. 

Almost half of the adults in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland do not check the use-by date on food before eating it.