New Best-Before and Use-By Guidelines Target Food Waste Reduction in Japan

In a bid to reduce food waste, Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency has revised its guidelines on the best-before and use-by dates for food products. The new guidelines encourage extending use-by dates for food products based on their type and explain that the “best-before date” indicates when the product will taste best.

It is important for consumers to realize that the “best-before date” concerns the optimal flavor of the food, not the point at which it becomes inedible. The “use-by date,” in contrast, indicates when the food can be safely consumed and thus needs to be treated with more caution than the “best-before date.”

A survey of 1,100 people across Japan aged 20 to 69, conducted by the Tokyo marketing research company Cross Marketing, found that 16.9% of respondents always follow the best-before date in consuming products, while 36.2% pay attention to the use-by date. The survey results seem to suggest that there is some understanding of the difference between the two indications. Regarding the best-before date in particular, 62.5% of people answered that they would still eat the food even if it had slightly passed the date.

Younger respondents were more likely to strictly adhere to best-before or use-by dates, while older generations tended to be more flexible, with an increasing number of people in older age groups saying they would consume a food product even if it was past the expiration date. Among those in their sixties, there was a tendency to trust their own judgment in cases where the best-before date had passed, such as “checking the appearance” or “taking a bite to confirm the taste.”

When asked what foods are still edible even after the expiration of the best-before date, the item mentioned most often, by 65.2% of the respondents, was snack breads, followed by frozen food, instant food, and canned and bottled food items. As for foods that respondents thought were not consumable when the best-before date had passed, the most frequently mentioned item was milk, at 51.8%, followed by eggs and yogurt.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)