Best-by vs use-by vs sell-by: what actually matters

Here’s the rule that covers almost every item in your kitchen: “best by,” “use by,” and “sell by” dates are about quality, not safety, and — except for infant formula — none of them are required by US federal law. They’re the manufacturer’s guess at peak freshness, not a cliff the food falls off. Judge by how it was stored and what your senses tell you, and you’ll throw away a lot less.

That one paragraph will save you money. The rest of this explains why, and where the exception lives.

What each label actually means

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service defines the common phrases, and every one of them points at quality:

• Best if Used By / Before — the date the product will be at its best flavor or quality. Not a safety date. This is the phrase the USDA actually recommends manufacturers use, because research shows people read it correctly.
• Use By — the last date recommended for peak quality. Still about quality for almost every food (the one exception is below).
• Sell By — a message to the store, not to you. It tells the shop how long to display an item for inventory management. It is not a safety date and was never meant for your decision-making.
• Freeze By — when to freeze something to lock in peak quality.

In the USDA’s own words: “Except for infant formula, dates are not an indicator of the product’s safety and are not required by Federal law.” Food past its “best if used by” date that shows no signs of spoilage is, per FSIS, still wholesome and fine to eat.

The one exception: infant formula

There’s exactly one date label in the US grocery store that the government regulates, and it’s on infant formula. Its “use by” date is the date up to which the manufacturer guarantees the nutrient content and quality, and it’s required on every container by the FDA. Don’t use formula past it.

Everything else? The date is a manufacturer’s quality estimate. No law made them print it, and no law says you can’t eat the food after it.

So why does this cost you money?

Because the confusion is expensive, and it’s been measured. In their December 2024 request for information, the USDA and FDA noted that muddled date labels account for about 20% of food wasted in the home. One in five things you bin, tossed over a phrase that was only ever about flavor.

ReFED puts a price on it: date-label confusion alone leads US consumers to throw away roughly three billion pounds of food, worth about $7 billion, every year.

And we’re not getting better at it. In ReFED’s January 2025 national survey, 87% of people said they understood the labels — but when quizzed, only 53% actually got them right. The gap between “I know what this means” and “I know what this means” is where the spinach dies.

What to do instead

Skip the panic. Use this order of operations:

1. Check how it was stored. A sealed jar in a cool, dark cupboard plays by very different rules than yoghurt left on the counter. Storage matters more than the printed date.
2. Use your senses. Look, smell, and for some things, taste a little. Spoilage is usually obvious — off smell, mold, slimy texture, a swollen can or lid. Those are real signals. A passed “best by” date is not.
3. Mind the genuinely perishable stuff. Highly perishable foods (fresh meat, seafood, prepared deli items) and, again, infant formula are where a date earns more respect. When something perishable looks or smells wrong, the old kitchen maxim applies: when in doubt, throw it out.
4. Freeze before the date, not after the regret. If you won’t get to it in time, the freezer stops the clock.

The federal direction of travel, for what it’s worth, is toward a single standard phrase — both the USDA and FDA are nudging the industry toward “Best if Used By” precisely to cut the confusion. Until that lands, the labels stay a patchwork, and reading them correctly is on us.

Where a pantry app quietly helps

The reason date confusion turns into waste is timing: you don’t reach for the thing until you’ve already half-forgotten it, and by then the date feels like a verdict. Flip the timing and the label barely matters.

That’s the job Pantry Pal’s pantry tracking does — it keeps the best-by date next to the item and nudges you toward the food that’s actually close to turning, so you’re cooking it at peak quality instead of staring at a label trying to remember when you bought it. The point isn’t to obey the date. It’s to never be surprised by it, which is also how you waste less of what you bought in the first place.

If you want the bigger picture on that — where household food waste actually goes and what it costs — we ran the numbers here.

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Sources

• USDA FSIS, Food Product Dating fact sheet (2024 update) — fsis.usda.gov
• FDA, How to Cut Food Waste and Maintain Food Safety — fda.gov
• USDA & FDA, joint Request for Information on date labeling, Dec. 3 2024 — usda.gov
• ReFED, Confusion Over Food Date Labels Has Grown national survey, Feb. 27 2025 — refed.org