Montana’s Milk Expiration Laws Protect Dairies and Force Food Waste: New at Reason

Earlier this month, an excellent, short new documentary debuted. It focuses on one type of state laws that senselessly promote food waste.

The documentary, Expired? Food Waste in America, is produced by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and Racing Horse Productions. It uses the clear shortcomings of a mandatory Montana milk-expiration-date law as a hook to illustrate broader problems with state food expiration-date mandates.

Under that law, Montana requires that any milk sold in the state have been pasteurized within the previous 288 hours, or 12 days. Grocers must throw away any milk not sold within the 288-hour window. The law does not permit the milk to be donated. As Baylen Linniken explains, the measure is the strictest in the nation. In fact, only one other state—Pennsylvania—has a similar window, and it sets the limit at 17 days.

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