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Waitrose removes ‘best before’ dates from hundreds of products to reduce food waste
Customers have been encouraged to instead ‘use their own judgement’
Waitrose has become the latest supermarket to remove ‘best before’ labels from its products in a bid to reduce food waste.
From September, nearly 500 fruit and vegetable products will no longer come with a ‘best before’ label, with customers instead being encouraged to ‘use their own judgment’ about when food has gone off.
The move is expected to save millions of baskets worth of food waste by preventing people from throwing away products that are still edible.
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.
Marija Rompani, director of sustainability and ethics at John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, said: “UK households throw away 4.5 million tonnes of edible food every year, meaning that all the energy and resources used in food production is wasted.
“By removing best before dates from our products, we want our customers to use their own judgment to decide whether a product is good to eat or not, which in turn will increase its chances of being eaten and not becoming waste.
“By using up existing fresh food in our homes, we can also save on our weekly household food shop, which is becoming an increasingly pressing concern for many.”
Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at Wrap said: “Best-before dates on fruit and veg are unnecessary and create food waste because they get in the way of people using their judgment when food is still good to eat.
“We are absolutely delighted by this move from Waitrose which will help stop good food ending up in the bin.”
Last month, M&S made a similar move to Waitrose, with the supermarket removing the best before dates from more than 300 fruit and vegetable products
And back in January, Morrisons announced plans to replace use-by dates on milk with ‘sniff tests’ to instead to determine if it is okay to consume.