Rebecca Richman Cohen

Three filmmakers, operating two cameras and a boom mic, hurry through Pattee Creek Market on a recent Friday afternoon. They are frantically tracking the seemingly mundane action of a store employee transferring milk cartons from one side of the market to a sink on the other side. There, he will pour the contents of the cartons down the drain in compliance with a state law that forbids the sale of milk more than 12 days after it's pasteurized. Led by director and Harvard Law School lecturer Rebecca Richman Cohen, the filmmakers are working with Emily Broad Leib, deputy director of Harvard's Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Emily Deddens [`15], a Harvard law student, on a short documentary about how confusing dating on food products leads to waste throughout the United States. According to Leib, Montana's policy regarding milk dating is the nation's strictest—and therefore the most glaring example of what's wrong nationwide.

When it comes to food waste the expression "crying over spilled milk" actually does apply. A study from Harvard prompted a film crew to come to Missoula and document how Montana's milk date process leads to mass amounts of waste each year. A film crew was on hand Friday afternoon at Pattee Creek Market to inquire about confusing expiration dates that can lead to food waste. "We wanted to take a new angle on this issue. It is a huge problem. It is 160 billion pounds of food that is wasted every year,"Harvard law student Emily Deddens [`15] said. "We are kind of thinking of a way to show that and it seemed like focusing on this one example of this law with milk that it would really demonstrate that perfectly good wholesome food is being thrown for no reason except that there is a law with an arbitrary date..."Most people are really surprised to know that they are not regulated at the federal level. So many of the labels on our food products people think that they come from the FDA or the USDA, but these labels are not really federally regulated with the exception of infant formula," said Harvard Law School Law and Policy Clinic Director Emily Broad Leib. Emmy nominated film maker Rebecca Richman Cohen has teamed with the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic to create a short documentary.