Sell By Versus Use By
I grew up in a state where things like milk were labeled with a “Use by” date. This was a great system. The dates were quite accurate, usually within about 36 hours of the label the product would sour. Now I live someplace that has a “Sell by” label. This is worthless. I have seen milk last almost a month after this sell by date. At the same time, I have seen milk last less than 4 days after this sell by date. The product gives no indication as to when it is actually about to go bad, just when the seller is told to get rid of it by. Why do some states implement this useless (to the consumer) system versus the incredibly convenient and intuitive ‘use by’ labeling? This is something that annoys me enough that the next time I move, I will be looking at the local labeling laws to make sure they make use of a ‘use by’ criteria.
April 30th, 2008 at 16:29 -0500
The f***ed thing is there is no legal requirement for stores actually remove outdated products from their stock. I think except for baby food and dairy in some states they are all voluntary labeling anyway. I remember in Regents Park market in the park, if I wasn’t careful I would end up buying milk that was almost a week past date. When I would go bitch they would say that either a)It’s not illegal to sell expired milk or b) they would try to blame me for trying to get free fresh milk. I guess however you could argue that a sell by date is more useful than a use by date in that MOST stores will remove something when it has past the sell by date allowing you to at least have a week or so with the product before it went bad. If they went by expires on you could end up buying it the day of or before it actually went bad.
I assume you’re probably referring to dairy, the problem then is there is no way to estimate the expiration date since it largely depends upon the handling of the product. I assume then that the use by date is estimated to be 1 week prior to the souring point of the highest reccomended storage temperature. But whatever, I trust my nose when using and always buy the newest s**t when buying.