food · 8 min read
Best By vs. Use By: Why Only Infant Formula Needs a Federal Use-By Date
Most food date labels track peak quality, not safety, and the wording depends on the maker and the state.
By AmpleGuide Editors · Updated October 2026
Apart from infant formula, federal law doesn’t require manufacturers to put a quality-based date label on any food you buy in the United States. Formula is the exception. Under 21 CFR 107.20(c), every container must say “Use by” followed by a date the maker backs with testing, and until that date the formula has to hold the nutrients on its label and pass through an ordinary bottle nipple.
That rule traces back to the Infant Formula Act, which Congress passed in 1980.
The date on your yogurt, cereal or bread works differently. The company chose to print it, and for most of what you buy, it’s an estimate of when the food will taste its best.
What most dates measure
That wording comes from the FDA’s Tips to Reduce Food Waste page, which adds that no single set of phrases is required either. The company behind each package you buy decides whether to date it at all.
So the date you see is usually a quality promise. The FDA supports the industry’s push to make “Best if Used By” the standard phrase for the date when a product will be at its best flavor and quality. Past that date, your crackers may be a little stale, but stale isn’t the same as unsafe.
For the meat and poultry you buy, the Agriculture Department’s inspection agency, known as FSIS, adds one extra rule. A date is optional there too. If the package shows one, it must give the month and the day, with a phrase right beside it that tells you what the date means, and frozen or shelf-stable products must add the year.
The industry’s two-phrase fix
In February 2017, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Food Marketing Institute tried to tidy up the labels you see. Their voluntary initiative took more than 10 phrases in use, such as “Sell By,” “Expires On,” “Born On” and “Enjoy By,” and asked companies to switch to two by the summer of 2018.
Here are the two new phrases alongside the older ones that turn up on packages.
| Phrase on the package | Who sets the date | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Best if Used By | The manufacturer, voluntarily | When flavor and quality peak; the food can still be eaten after it |
| Use By | The manufacturer; required on infant formula | For perishable foods where safety or nutrition can slip; eat or freeze it by then |
| Use or Freeze By | The manufacturer, voluntarily | The same safety date, with freezing as the other option |
| Sell By | The manufacturer, for the store | How long the store should display it; not a deadline for you |
“Sell By” is aimed at the store. It’s a stock-rotation date that tells the store how long to keep a product on display, and it says nothing about when you should eat it.
Rules change at the state line
Your state may add rules of its own, and states don’t agree. The Dating Game, a 2013 report from the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and the Natural Resources Defense Council, checked all 50 states, so its counts reflect the law as of 2013. It found that 41 states plus the District of Columbia required date labels on at least some foods, while 9 states required none.
New York required none, while all six neighbors the report lists, Rhode Island included, did.
The same report counted 20 states plus the District of Columbia that limited sales of food past its label date. The other 30 had no such limit.
If you buy milk in Montana, the state limits its shelf life. Under Montana Administrative Rule 32.8.202, a store can’t sell a unit of Grade A milk once 12 days have passed since pasteurization, and the state’s definitions cap that window at 288 hours. The rule dates to 1980 and was last amended in 2023.
In Montana, then, the sell-by date on your milk is a legal deadline for the store. In a state with no milk rule, the same date is only advice to your grocer.
California rewrote the labels
California went further than any voluntary standard. Assembly Bill 660, signed on September 28, 2024, covers food manufactured on or after July 1, 2026. If you pick up a dated package made after that, a quality date on it must read “BEST if Used by” or “BEST if Used or Frozen by.”
A safety date must read “USE by” or “USE by or Freeze by.” On small items and beverages, you may see the short forms “BB” and “UB.”
The law also bans a “sell by” that you can read. Stores may keep a coded sell-by date that you aren’t meant to read, and infant formula, eggs and beer are exempt. Food made before July 2026 can keep its old wording, so if you shop in California, you’ll see both styles on the shelf for a while.
Federal regulators want answers
On December 4, 2024, FSIS and the FDA published a joint request for information on food date labeling. They asked manufacturers how they pick their dates and asked researchers what shoppers like you understand. Comments closed on February 3, 2025.
A request for information doesn’t change the labels you see.
Both agencies merely recommend “Best if Used By,” and federal rules let a company print “Sell By” or “Use By” as long as the label is truthful and not misleading.
What the confusion costs
The FDA estimates that confusion over date labels accounts for 20 percent of consumer food waste, the food you and other households throw away. That’s a share of a very large pile. In 2019, according to an EPA estimate quoted in the federal request, stores, restaurants and homes generated 66 million tons of wasted food. About 60 percent of it went to landfills.
The industry’s 2017 fact sheet gives you a more modest number. It said about 44 percent of the food waste sent to landfills comes from consumers, and that clearing up date confusion could cut total national food waste by just 8 percent.
Why shoppers toss food early
Two older surveys, both cited in The Dating Game, show how deep the confusion ran. In a 2011 Food Marketing Institute shopper survey, 91 percent of shoppers said they had at least occasionally thrown out food past its “sell by” date out of concern for safety. Of those surveyed, 25 percent said they always discarded such food.
Understanding was thin, too. A 2007 USDA-funded survey in the same report found that only 44 percent of adults could correctly describe what “sell by” means.
Only 18 percent could do the same for “use by.”
Both surveys predate the 2017 two-phrase standard, so they measure the jumble of labels you would have seen before it.
Signs food has really turned
Once a “Best if Used By” date passes, the FDA tells you to examine the food for signs of spoilage. If it has changed noticeably in color, consistency or texture, the agency says you may want to avoid eating it. If you have questions about a food’s quality or safety, the FDA suggests contacting the company that made it, and many packages list that contact information.
Give a “Use By” date on a perishable food more respect. Under the 2017 standard, that phrase marks foods where safety can slip, so you should eat or freeze them by the date.
Every date also assumes you stored the food the way the label says. The FDA wants your refrigerator at 40°F or below and your freezer at 0°F, and a fridge thermometer tells you whether yours holds that.
Read the phrase before the number
Infant formula is the one food where a federal rule spells out what the date must guarantee, and that “Use by” is worth following to the day. For nearly everything else in your fridge and pantry, the phrase in front of the number tells you more than the number does.
Next time you clean out your fridge, read the phrase before each date. Then judge each “Best if Used By” item by its color, consistency and texture, and let anything marked “Use By” go by its date.