Supermarket Waitrose is removing best-before dates from nearly 500 fresh food products in an effort to reduce food waste, stated recent reports.
From September, the supermarket chain will scrap the dates on packaged fruit and vegetables, including lettuce, cucumber and peppers, to encourage consumers to use their “own judgement” about when food has gone off, The Guardian reported.
The move is expected to cut food waste by preventing people from throwing away products that are still edible, the retailer says.
It comes almost a month after Marks & Spencer announced that it is axing best-before dates on more than 300 fruit and vegetable products after a successful trial. Tesco had got rid of best-before dates on more than 100 fresh food products back in 2018.
In January, Morrisons announced plans to remove use-by dates on milk and encourage consumers to use a “sniff test” instead to determine if it is OK to consume.
The government-backed Waste Resources Action Programme (Wrap) estimates that removing dates on fresh fruit and veg could save the equivalent of 7m shopping baskets of food from the bin in the UK. Potatoes are the most wasted food in the UK, followed by bread and milk, according to Wrap.
“UK households throw away 4.5m tonnes of edible food every year, meaning that all the energy and resources used in food production is wasted,” Marija Rompani, director of sustainability and ethics at the John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, told The Guardian.
“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.”
