Is it really expired?

How Are Expiration Dates Determined

Manufacturers and retailers consider these factors when determining the date for which the product will be of best quality.

Date-Labeling

Currently, date labels generally are not intended to indicate a food product’s safety. These dates are generally set by the manufacturer based on an estimate of when the food will still taste fresh, so that consumers will have the best experience of the product.

• "Best if Used By/Before"?date?indicates when a product will be of best flavor or quality.? It is not a purchase or safety date.*
• "Sell-By"?date tells the store how long to display the product for sale for inventory management.? It is not a safety date.?
• “Use-By"?date is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. It is not a safety date except for when used on infant formula as described below.
• “Freeze-By”?date indicates when a product should be frozen to maintain peak quality. It is not a purchase or safety date.

The quality of perishable products may deteriorate after the date passes but the products should still be wholesome if not exhibiting signs of spoilage.

Spoiled foods will develop an off odor, flavor or texture due to naturally occurring spoilage bacteria. If a food has developed such spoilage characteristics, it should not be eaten

* The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the Food Marketing Institute, and Harvard University have combined efforts to streamline expiration labels about the quality and safety of food. Two phrases simplify how you can tell what’s still good to consume

Date Labeling Regulations

Infant formula is the only product for which a date label is federally regulated. This is not because of a safety concern, but because the nutrients in the formula decline over time. All other labeling requirements are stipulated by a patchwork of state and local laws, though manufacturers generally choose the dates on packages. Over a third of Americans believe that the federal government regulates date labels.

Below is a sampling of state regulations, illustrating the arbitrary variability that currently exists across the United States:

• Connecticut only requires date labels on dairy products, and does not restrict the sale of these products after the labeled date.
• Michigan requires date labels on pre-packaged perishable foods and dairy products, and restricts the sale of both of these items—as well as meat—once the labeled date has passed. Michigan also requires date labels on shellfish but does not restrict their sale after the labeled date. Michigan also requires date labels on shellfish but does not restrict their sale after the labeled date.
• Montana requires that milk be labeled with a “sell by” date of 12 days from the date of pasteurization, and bans the sale or donation of milk after that date. By eliminating its ban on the sale of past-date milk, a ban that is not supported by science, Montana could help reduce milk waste and allow wholesome products to get to those who want them.
• New York does not require date labels on any food products, and does not regulate the sale nor donation of past-date foods.

In May 2023, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Representatives Chellie Pingree (D-ME) along with six co-sponsors introduced companion bills in the Senate (S. 1484) and the House (H.R. 3159) to standardize food date labels across the United States.

Food Date Labeling Act of 2023 would to establish requirements for quality and discard dates that are voluntarily declared on the food label.

Predicting Food Expiration Date

Predicting food expiration date for perishable foods can be challenging, particularly using deterministic models. Environmental variables such as

• Temperature range
• Moisture (pH) levels
• Relative humidity %
• Atmospheric conditions (Dioxygen (O2), Ethylene (C2H4), Carbon dioxide (CO2))
• Light intensity

throughout the food supply chain can play a role in how long perishable foods are safe to eat. Other perishability factors include food characteristics such as

• physical (size, shape, solidity)
• textural (firmness, tenderness, colors)
• compositional (starch, sugar, acid, oil, juice, ethylene concentrations)

Compatibility of foods must be considered when transporting / storing multiple categories together (temperature, humidity and ethylene sensitivity).

Ethylene emitting vegetables and fruits?such as mangoes, bananas, and papayas ripen faster. To prevent this, ethylene-sensitive fruits and vegetables (such as potatoes, apples, and carrots) are placed in groceries away from varieties that emit the gas. This helps to keep them fresh longer and avoid rapid decay.

Food Loss and Waste Happens

Failing to keep perishable food in the desired temperature range, because of insufficient refrigeration, can stimulate the growth of pathogens and spoilage microorganisms and render the product inedible.

Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year—approximately 1.3 billion tons—gets lost or wasted. Food supply chains are complex, with many stages where food loss and waste can occur. A large amount of food produced gets wasted in parts of the supply chain such as farms, storehouses, logistics, and processing units.

"Expiration" dates are typically affixed to the product when it leaves production or processing. Those dates are based on proper handling of their products, and do not take into account incidents like the refrigeration failing in transit from the processing plant to the store.

Advanced Technologies to the rescue

Advanced technologies such as internet of things (IoT), radio-frequency identification (RFID), and data analytics have revolutionized monitoring of perishable foods.

The TCS’ Smart Food Freshness Monitoring Platform is used to predict ripening duration of climacteric fruits (banana, mango, papaya, etc.) and predicting shelf life of potatoes for different customers.

The platform is built using a collection of IoT-enabled sensors which senses galvanic skin resistance (GSR), near infrared (NIR) imaging, ultrasound, pH, air quality, gas composition (CO2, NH3, C2H4, O2, etc.), weight, volatile organic compound (VOC) content, camera feeds, and chemically analyzed food parameters. Additionally, it is coupled with data analytics, image processing, and cloud computing. The platform allows for the provision for variation of environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, light intensity, etc. thus simulating the conditions like those experienced by food in the field, during storage and in transit.

Date Labeling Impacts Food Waste

Confusion over the meaning of dates applied to food products can result in consumers discarding wholesome food.

• USDA estimates that 31 percent of the food supply is lost or wasted at the retail and consumer levels.
• According to ReFED , 84% of Americans report occasionally throwing away food that is close to or past the date on the package; 37% do so always or usually.

Consumers need understand that the dates applied to food are for quality and not for safety.

• Food products are safe to consume past the date on the label,
• Regardless of the date, consumers should evaluate the quality of the food product prior to its consumption

Food can be donated after the date passes

• According to ReFED, twenty-one (21) states restrict sales or donations of some foods past the date label, even if the food is still healthy and safe to eat.

Intelligent Food Packaging Are the Future

Intelligent Food Packaging could be key to end food date labeling. Printed electrical gas sensors, known as ‘paper-based electrical gas sensors’ (PEGS), that are produced at near “zero cost” could detect spoilage gases like ammonia and trimethylamine in meat and fish products. The sensor data can be read by smartphones, so that people can hold their phone up to the packaging to see whether the food is safe to eat

The various indicators can be divided into temperature indicators, freshness indicators, leak indicators, or pH indicators.

Most deteriorative changes in foods are temperature-dependent, and that is why temperature control is so important for food stability, mainly for refrigerated and frozen products.

• Critical temperature indicators (CTIs) indicate whether a critical temperature value has been reached along storage.
• Time-temperature integrators (TTIs) provide information on the full temperature history of the food product along the food supply chain.
• Freshness indicators (FIs) reflect food freshness by detecting the characteristic release of food spoilage microorganisms. In different types of intelligent food packaging, the main substances which could provide an indication of food freshness are CO2, volatile alkaline nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and other substances.
• Gas indicators are a type of leak indicators (LIs). They monitor food quality and safety by directly contacting the gases generated during food deterioration and by monitoring changes in a package’s gas composition. Oxygen and CO2 are widely used for gas indicator detection.
• pH indicators (PHIs) were developed for detecting pH value changes in packaged foods. Polyphenols such as anthocyanins are currently used to develop pH indicators.