Accelerating the reduction of food waste has become an international consensus.However，at present，the academic community knows very little about the problem of food waste caused by food expiration date labels and the reasons behind it.Especially in transitional economies represented by China，there is no clear answer to this question yet.This study employs an information intervention experiment and a difference-in-differences （DID） model to investigate the net effect and underlying mechanisms of information intervention on consumers’cognition of food shelf-life label and their willingness to waste food.In addition，it further identifies consumer preferences for different types of shelf-life labels.The results show that Chinese consumers generally misunderstand food shelf-life label，with an overall cognitive accuracy of only 19.39%，and such misunderstanding is accompanied by substantial food waste.Information intervention based on the true meaning of the food shelf-life label effectively improves consumers’cognition and reduces their intended food waste.Changes in consumers’perception of food safety status serve as the primary pathway through which information intervention affects their willingness to food waste.Compared with the current labeling system that primarily indicates food quality，Chinese consumers show a stronger preference for label type that represent food safety attributes when making food consumption decisions.