Domestic Food Waste Legislation: State Solutions and Calls for Federal Action 

By Isabel Yin, FLPC Fall 2024 Student

On July 18, California’s legislature filed AJR 10, a resolution advocating for the federal government to enact the Food Date Labeling Act of 2023 (FDLA), with the Secretary of State. The resolution cited several statistics that demonstrate the nation’s mounting food waste problem, its environmental consequences, and the transformative potential of the FDLA to alleviate the amount of food wasted due to unstandardized food labeling. By way of comparison, the resolution referenced California’s own AB 954 bill—which introduced voluntary uniform date labeling phrases for the food industry—and noted that many large food brands had indeed adopted these phrases on their packaging. More recently, on September 28, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law AB 660—the act amends existing California law to mandate adoption of uniform date label phrases by the food industry.  

As they currently stand, AB 660 and the FDLA share several similar features. Both bills aim to reduce food waste resulting from date labeling inconsistencies and use similar language in their proposed date label phrases. The FDLA would require food quality dates and discard dates, if included, to be labelled as “BEST If Used By” and “USE By,” respectively (with “or Frozen by” added when applicable to quality dates). AB 660 matches the FDLA’s label phrasing with some minor variations in letter capitalization. AB 660 and the FDLA both exempt infant formula, which is separately regulated by the FDA under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and allow for abbreviations when packaging is too small to include the uniform date label phrase (“BB” for quality date and “UB” for discard/safety date). The bills both provide for delayed applicability—coming into effect 2 years after enactment for the FDLA and on July 1, 2026 for AB 660—likely in recognition of the systemic changes the food industry would have to make with their packaging to become compliant with the bills.  

AB 660 also differs from the FDLA in some respects. The most obvious is that as a state law, AB 660 only governs date labeling in California while the FDLA, if passed, would set a federal date labeling compliance standard and would preempt provisions in AB 660 that did not match the FDLA. Even assuming the FDLA is not passed, AB 660 still stipulates that it exempts products governed by existing laws with terms that conflict with AB 660 (this includes federal laws regulating products like eggs). Additionally, AB 660 specifically phases out “sell-by” dates, requiring that they be replaced by quality dates when applicable, while the FDLA does not address this phrase in the Act. While both bills state the relevant laws that would be amended to account for the effect of the acts, AB 660 is more detailed than the FDLA in what it regulates, containing other state-specific legal amendments regarding the packaging process for certain prepackaged foods and the limits to shelf life for frozen foods.  

Differences aside, the shared message of AB 660 and the FDLA is clear: the legal system must act to solve the country’s food waste problem, and uniform date label phrases are a small but important way of progressing towards this goal. While AB 660 (and its predecessor AB 954) are commendable steps towards reducing food waste at the state level, the necessity of federal action urged for in AJR 10 remains as crucial as ever. Consumers and producers nationwide would benefit from a federal standard for date labeling, which would reduce both household food waste caused by date label confusion and the costs for manufacturers who would otherwise have to label their packaging differently according to different state labelling requirements. As the California legislature charts its way towards state food waste reduction, the federal government should take the FDLA into serious consideration as a critical opportunity to strengthen our national food waste policy.