SAINSBURY’S is making a major change to a supermarket aisle at every store.
The store revealed that it will be vacuum packing all of its beef mince products.
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Sainsbury’s own brand beef packets will be a lot smaller compared to the current, larger packets its been using up until now.
It will apply to all of Sainsbury’s 600 stores from today.
Customers ordering online for delivery and click & collect will also be given vacuum packed beef.
The amount of meat in each packet will still stay the same so shoppers won’t be missing out.
The price of the meat currently starts at £1.99 for a 500g pack – this won’t be changing.
There’ll be no change to the weight of the product.
The change means Sainsbury’s will be using a minimum of 55% less plastic as it moves to becoming more sustainable.
Claire Hughes, director of product and innovation at Sainsbury’s, said she is pleased that the company is making this change without impacting the quantity or great quality of product that our customers expect.
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She said there’ll be more to come from Sainsbury’s as it works with its suppliers.
Sainsbury’s has also made other changes to be more sustainable.
In 2019, Sainsbury’s removed plastic bags on fruit and veg in stores.
Shoppers have to bring in their own containers or buy a reusable drawstring bag for 30p.
More recently, the supermarket giant joined other major stores by removing plastic lids on bottle cartons.
It confirmed that it had gradually been rolling our clear milk bottle tips for semi-skimmed milk since October.
The retailer confirmed it is planning to make the change across its entire milk supply this year.
Posh shop Waitrose ditched its red, blue and green milk caps over the summer.
While Aldi has been trialling the switch since August, ditching its coloured caps.
Fellow discounter Lidl followed suit in October, bringing in the change permanently.
Co-op removed all coloured milk bottle lids from its shelves in November in favour of clear caps.
Most supermarkets have also scrapped best before dates on many fruit and veg items.
Best-before dates are put on foods as a guide to quality, not safety.
That means you can eat the food after the figure printed, but it might not be as tasty.
Co-op is the latest store to make the change.
Tesco ditched best before dates on its own brand of fruit and veg back in 2018.
It said removing the dates would stop shoppers confusing the use-by date with the best-before date.
Eating food after its use by date (unless it has been frozen on or before its use by date) could result in food poisoning.
In September last year, Waitrose also ditched best before dates on fruit and veg.
The dates were also taken off indoor and outdoor plants.
Over 300 fruit and veg products no longer have best before dates on them at Marks & Spencer.
And Asda ditched the dates from almost 250 of its fresh fruit and vegetable products last September.
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.
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