Waste: UK supermarket removes best before date from 500 products
British supermarket chain Waitrose announced on Monday August 1st that it was withdrawing the recommended consumption dates for almost 500 products. With this approach, the company wants to combat food waste.
UK supermarkets Waitrose announced on Monday August 1st they are withdrawing recommended consumption dates for nearly 500 products in a bid to avoid discouraging their customers from consuming food that is still good, in a bid to fight food waste.
From September, Waitrose will remove “best before” labels, an indicative date after which a product is safe to eat, from nearly 500 fresh produce, particularly packaged fruit and vegetables, the company said in a statement.
“Food waste is still a big problem”
This measure “aims to reduce the volume of food waste in UK households by encouraging customers to exercise judgement” when deciding whether a product is still edible, this high-end supermarket chain added.
“Food waste is still a big problem,” and UK households “throw away 4.5 million tonnes of edible food every year,” said Marija Rompani, sustainability director at department store group John Lewis, Waitrose’s parent company.
Essentially linked to the taste or nutritional quality of a product, the best-before date is equivalent in France to the “best before” date.
“Save the equivalent of 7 million grocery baskets”
On the other hand, the “use by” (use before) notice that appears on perishable products is a mandatory notice and failure to comply carries health risks, as does the sell-by date across the Channel.
“We estimate that removing dates from fresh fruit and vegetables could save the equivalent of 7 million baskets of food from the bin,” Waitrose said.
The company is following in the footsteps of other British brands, such as industry giant Tesco, which dropped recommended consumption dates for a hundred products from 2018, or more recently Marks and Spencer, who did the same for 300 references. .
Morrisons, another supermarket chain, announced in January it would be dropping the sell-by date rather than the recommended date for 90% of its store-brand milk, and encouraged customers to smell the contents of the bottle to know it’s always good.
