A MAJOR supermarket has decided to scrap best before dates on over 500 of its fresh food products.
Stores across the country have been getting rid of the labels in an effort to prevent food waste.
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From September, Waitrose will ditch best before dates on packaged fruit and vegetables in a bid to encourage consumers to use their own judgement about when food has gone off.
Waitrose is not the first supermarket to try and improve food waste in this way.
Back in 2018 Tesco decided to remove best-before dates from some of its own-label fruit and vegetables.
And Morrisons came under fire after it decided to scrap “use-by” dates on milk – asking customers to use a sniff test to check if it had gone off.
John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, said that in the UK, best before dates are designed to showcase food quality for customers, rather than safety.
In a statement they said that food is at its best before this date, however it should still be OK to eat after this date has passed.
It’s worth remembering that “best before dates” are very different from “use by” dates.
Eating food after its use by date (unless it has been frozen on or before its use by date) could result in food poisoning.
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Use by dates will still be in place across products for safety at Waitrose – so make sure you don’t accidentally eat the wrong thing and get sick.
“Food waste continues to be a major issue and in the UK alone 70% of all food wasted is by people in their own homes,” said Marija Rompani, director of sustainability and ethics at John Lewis Partnership.
Rompani said UK households throw away 4.5 millions tonnes of edible food every year, meaning that all the energy and resources used in food production is wasted.
Packaged fresh products which Waitrose will be removing best before dates include:
- Lettuce
- Cucumber
- Peppers
- Potted herbs
- Salad Onions
- Tomatoes
- Mushrooms
- Celery
- Potatoes
- Root vegetables
- Brassica vegetables
- Leeks
- Melons
- Pineapples
- Apples
- Pears
- Citrus – Oranges, Lemons, Limes
- Plums
- Grapes
- Exotic fruits
- Indoor & outdoor plants
Tips on how to reduce food waste
Making sure you don’t waste food is a great way to save money.
Meal plans are a good way to cut down on pointless waste.
Try and plan the meals you make around ingredients you can use more than once.
You can also freeze things before they go off.
For example, fruit and veg can be saved if chopped up and portioned in the freezer.
Put food in freezer bags and make sure you write a date on them, so you know when they were frozen.
You can also make big batches of meals in one go and then freeze them, as you might be able to save money when buying in bulk.
