涩里番

Nicholas C. Petruzzi

Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madiso

Discretionary Sell-by Dates and their Implications for Food Waste and Availability

Date: Friday, January 23, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location: Bronfman Building, Room 310

Abstract

Despite their widespread use, date labels on food products are largely unregulated in the United States. As a result, manufacturers have broad discretion on both the type of label to use, if any, and the date to affix to the label. One such label, sell-by dates, are designed primarily to provide inventory rotation guidance to retailers. This guidance is especially important to retailers that face uncertain demand for a perishable product. But this raises an important question: under what conditions should manufacturers choose shorter versus longer sell-by dates, and how do these decisions affect food waste and food availability? To address this question, we analyze a Stackelberg game between one manufacturer and one retailer of a perishable product, where consumer demand for the product is uncertain. The manufacturer leads by setting not only the sell-by date for the product, but also a credit to reimburse the retailer for each unit of the product that does not sell by the chosen date. The retailer then responds by choosing its base stock level for dynamically replenishing its inventory of the product. We show that manufacturers favor shorter sell-by dates if margins are higher, because higher order volumes outweigh the cost of increased waste, whereas they favor longer sell-by dates if margins are lower, to reduce safety stock costs. As a result, we also find that that shorter sell-by dates can lead to the triple-negative externality in which product availability for consumers decreases at the same time that product waste for retailers increases and profit for the supply chain decreases. Our findings therefore suggest that manufacturer discretion over date labels can simultaneously result in undesirable economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Policymakers can address this problem by standardizing date labels to eliminate discretionary labeling practices or by implementing disposal fees as a Pagouvian tax on manufacturers.