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Comment by kwhitefoot | Hacker News Reader

Here in Norway yoghurt pots have Tine's new slogan:

    Best før, men ikke dårlig etter.

In English:

    Best before, but not bad after.

Shops are also required to reduce the amount of food that they throw out which results in every supermarket having a chiller with almost out of date food marked down by 40 or 50 percent. I buy a lot of this.

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they would get sued to oblivion in USA.

Almost out of date food, which is commoly sold at a discount in the US as well.

I think they were referring to saying that a product is "not bad after" it's expiration date.

Labelling here, Norway, distinguishes between a 'best before' (best før), and a 'last edible date' (siste forbruksdato).

The second typically appears only on fresh produce, such as a sliced ham, that becomes dangerous as it gets older, in contrast to products like milk, yoghurt, vegetables, etc., which typically simply decline in quality but are not dangerous even weeks or even months past the best before date.

A vendor could be sued for that in the US, but not a manufacturer. Expiration dates have no legal meaning for manufacturers.

(A manufacturer actually was sued when, after encountering production issues, they recovered by simply relabeling the expiration dates on existing product. But the manufacturer won that suit decisively.)

thats different though.

Maybe you've never been to discount grocery stores in the US.

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