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It's about the statistics, same reason we have seatbelts and helmet laws. If a less aggressive sell-by date means one in a million loaves of bread gets moldy, t

It's about the statistics, same reason we have seatbelts and helmet laws. If a less aggressive sell-by date means one in a million loaves of bread gets moldy, that might kill a handful of people a year. If nothing else, allowing people to die from preventable sales of expired food is bad politics.

benj111 8y ago
How many people a year die from moldy bread? Best before and sell by is a guarantee. Its the company saying this product will last until X date. Just like your car doesn't become unusable when the warranty runs out, neither does bread, especially when you make some attempt to store it properly, because best before dates are based on the opposite.
- DanBC 8y ago
  Each year about 3000 people in the US die from food poisoning. About 100,000 people are hospitalised, and some of them will have been caused permanent harm.
  - thereisnospork 8y ago
    To add: even if we throw out a few hundred million dollars worth of food, that's more than a fair trade for a few thousand lives and 40x that in hospitalizations.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > Best before and sell by is a guarantee. Its the company saying this product will last until X date. As I mention elsewhere in the thread, these dates do not have any legal meaning at all for the manufacturer. They do have meaning for the vendor (the grocery store), but that's not what people generally imagine is going on. Even the phrasing "best before" explicitly doesn't guarantee anything; a manufacturer would be crazy to make such a guarantee.
  - benj111 8y ago
    A guarantee, as in we will stand behind this product until X date. You wouldn't necessarily expect to have no problems with a car in the warranty period, you would expect any problems that arise within the warranty period to be sorted. I would expect bread consumed before the best before date not to be stale, if it was I would expect to be able to get my money back, I wouldn't expect the same after the best before.
    - ValentineC 8y ago
      > I would expect bread consumed before the best before date not to be stale, if it was I would expect to be able to get my money back, I wouldn't expect the same after the best before. One problem with food is that there are too many variables about how it's stored after it leaves the store. For example, bread can go stale if it's not stored in an airtight container.
      - benj111 8y ago
        And that's why I use my own judgement when deciding if its ok to eat. The best before probably takes into account the worst case and is set low accordingly. I go to the effort to store bread appropriately so that lower bound is no longer particularly relevant to me.
        thaumasiotes 8y ago
        > The best before probably takes into account the worst case and is set low accordingly. Absolutely not, if you think bread going stale is relevant to the expiration date. (Which it isn't.) If you leave bread exposed to the air, it will go stale almost immediately, long before a one-week expiration period has elapsed. The expiration date is obsolete as soon as you open the product.

benj111 8y ago

How many people a year die from moldy bread? Best before and sell by is a guarantee. Its the company saying this product will last until X date. Just like your car doesn't become unusable when the warranty runs out, neither does bread, especially when you make some attempt to store it properly, because best before dates are based on the opposite.

DanBC 8y ago
Each year about 3000 people in the US die from food poisoning. About 100,000 people are hospitalised, and some of them will have been caused permanent harm.
- thereisnospork 8y ago
  To add: even if we throw out a few hundred million dollars worth of food, that's more than a fair trade for a few thousand lives and 40x that in hospitalizations.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> Best before and sell by is a guarantee. Its the company saying this product will last until X date. As I mention elsewhere in the thread, these dates do not have any legal meaning at all for the manufacturer. They do have meaning for the vendor (the grocery store), but that's not what people generally imagine is going on. Even the phrasing "best before" explicitly doesn't guarantee anything; a manufacturer would be crazy to make such a guarantee.
- benj111 8y ago
  A guarantee, as in we will stand behind this product until X date. You wouldn't necessarily expect to have no problems with a car in the warranty period, you would expect any problems that arise within the warranty period to be sorted. I would expect bread consumed before the best before date not to be stale, if it was I would expect to be able to get my money back, I wouldn't expect the same after the best before.
  - ValentineC 8y ago
    > I would expect bread consumed before the best before date not to be stale, if it was I would expect to be able to get my money back, I wouldn't expect the same after the best before. One problem with food is that there are too many variables about how it's stored after it leaves the store. For example, bread can go stale if it's not stored in an airtight container.
    - benj111 8y ago
      And that's why I use my own judgement when deciding if its ok to eat. The best before probably takes into account the worst case and is set low accordingly. I go to the effort to store bread appropriately so that lower bound is no longer particularly relevant to me.
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        > The best before probably takes into account the worst case and is set low accordingly. Absolutely not, if you think bread going stale is relevant to the expiration date. (Which it isn't.) If you leave bread exposed to the air, it will go stale almost immediately, long before a one-week expiration period has elapsed. The expiration date is obsolete as soon as you open the product.