Best By

"Best by" — sometimes "best if used by," sometimes just "best before" — is the manufacturer's own estimate of when a product stops being at its peak quality: texture, flavor, color. It is not a food-safety cutoff. With the single exception of infant formula, no US federal law requires it, regulates its wording, or defines what it means — manufacturers choose the phrase and the date themselves, as long as it isn't misleading.

A 2025 Harris Poll found that 43% of consumers always or usually throw food away at or near its printed date — most of it, days or weeks before it would actually spoil. The date on the package looks official. It isn't, in the legal sense that most people assume. That gap between how confident the label looks and how little it actually regulates is exactly where a perfectly good bag of spinach or block of cheese ends up in the bin.

Federal agencies (FDA and USDA/FSIS) recommend that manufacturers voluntarily standardize on "Best if Used By" for quality dates, to cut down on the current mix of "best by," "sell by," "use by," and "best before" all meaning slightly different things depending who printed them. That recommendation isn't law yet — a federal rule is only projected, with a compliance date no earlier than 1 January 2028. California moved first: AB 660 took effect 1 July 2026 and mandates "Best if Used By" for quality and "Use By" for safety on food sold in the state, and bans consumer-facing "Sell By" dates outright. It's a strong signal of where the rest of the US is likely headed, not a national rule yet.

If a date on your food says "best by" and it's passed, that's a quality flag, not an automatic "throw it out." Use your senses — smell, look, texture — the same way you would for anything without a printed date at all. This is also exactly why FridgeAI works from a photo of what's actually in your fridge right now, rather than a shopping list or a set of tracked expiry dates: the question that actually matters isn't what the label predicted weeks ago, it's what's in front of you today.