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M&S removes ‘best before’ dates from fruit and vegetables to combat food waste
Research has found that over 6 million tons of edible food is thrown away each year
M&S has removed ‘best before’ dates from more than 300 fruit and vegetable products in a bid to clamp down on food waste.
Following a successful trial, the retailer will no longer display the dates on fresh produce across its stores, with it instead encouraging customers to use their judgement to decide when food can no longer be eaten.
According to the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), more than six million tonnes of food that is still edible goes to waste each year in the UK.
Out of this, fruits and vegetables are some of the most commonly-wasted items, particularly apples and potatoes.
Eduardo Soares / Unsplash
According to WRAP’s guidance on ‘best before dates’, many food items that are past their dates ‘remain safe and perfectly good to eat for days, weeks, months or even years’ afterwards.
Andrew Clappen, Director of Food Technology at M&S, said: “We’re determined to tackle food waste.
Read More: Morrisons to scrap use by date on milk in favour of ‘sniff test’
“Our teams and suppliers work hard to deliver fresh, delicious, responsibly sourced produce at great value and we need to do all we can to make sure none of it gets thrown away [but] to do that, we need to be innovative and ambitious.
“Removing best before dates where safe to do so, trialling new ways to sell our products, and galvanising our customers to get creative with leftovers and embrace change.”
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Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at WRAP, added: “We’re thrilled to see this move from M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis.
“Removing dates on fresh fruit and veg can save the equivalent of seven million shopping baskets of food being binned in our homes.
“We urge more supermarkets to get ahead on food waste by axing date labels from fresh produce, allowing people to use their own judgement.”
This comes as other supermarkets and retailers make similar efforts to combat food waste, with Tesco scrapping the ‘best before’ dates from all fruit and vegetables in 2018 and Morrisons removing the label from its milk products in favour of the ‘sniff test’.