[anjan_c2007]

Some of the largest U. K. supermarket chains are doing away with the best before date labels on fruits, vegetables, milk, yoghurt and other food products sold by them. The chains include Waitrose, Tesco (the largest food chain in the U. K.) for fruits and vegetables, Morrisons for milk and Co-op for yoghurt. No such announcements have come from Asda or Sainbury’s, though the latter did try to change consumer habits with some in-store tasting booths that offered food past its best before date.

The chain Waitrose was the latest (wef 1 August 2022) to join the label annihilation exercise saying that the labels will disappear from nearly 500 fresh products, including potatoes and apples, from September.

Food Standards Agency (FSA) of the UK government is responsible for protecting public health on edible matters. The FSA has left it up to the manufacturers to decide whether to apply a 'use by' or 'best before' date on their products.

The argument supporting such a move is that by removing dates on fresh fruit and vegetables, the nation will save the equivalent of 7 million shopping baskets of food from the bin that is harmful for the environment too, in addition to these foods getting wasted and fully lost, value wise.

The media report reveals that apples when refrigerated can stay fresh for two months. I can vouch for the authenticity of this statement, personally having been successful in keeping apples fresh for more than a month (good ones not bad apples).

Around 70 per cent of food waste in the UK happens at home, according to climate action NGO Wrap (Waste and Resources Action Programme). It’s a similar picture across the EU, where 88 million tonnes of food are chucked each year.

Marija Rompani, director of sustainability and ethics at the John Lewis Partnership which owns Waitrose, says "By removing best before dates from our products, we want our customers to use their own judgement 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."

First of all, it’s crucial to understand the difference between ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates. The former indicates when perishable food can no longer be cooked and consumed safely, and ignoring this could lead to food poisoning.

Best before dates, on the other hand, refer to food quality, and suggest when a product’s taste and texture will be optimal. But there’s no need to defer to a label when you can use your own senses to decide whether an item is still edible.

"Wasting food feeds climate change and it costs people money,” comments Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at Wrap. “Best before dates on fruit and veg are unnecessary and create food waste because they get in the way of people using their judgement when food is still good to eat" according to her. Wrap is a NGO working around the globe to tackle the causes of the climate crisis and give the planet a sustainable future.

Details:-

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/...-dates-and-why

This is indeed a good, out of the box and out of the pigeon hole thinking endeavour by the respective food chains to avoid criminal wastage of food and food products, that take lots of natural resources, money and efforts to produce.

From the Indian perspective though this is a good concept, our tropical climate is not much conducive to preserve quite many food products on the market shelves for a longer time as compared to the average, European climate. Moreover, there are many marketers and retailers who could take advantage of the absence of best before dates, to put consumers to a disadvantage both in the U.K. and also here in India, if we ever embrace this concept.

A debate on this topic will be educative and informative by all our members and stakeholders.

Ending on a lighter note, an analogy can be drawn as we are now getting expiry dates for all kinds of motor vehicles, but two wheelers in a few parts of our country. Some give 10 while some give 15 years as expiry dates from the date of registration of the motor vehicles.

[bblost]

I am very closely associated with the composting unit in my apartment complex of 2000 plus flats.

As part of this we once decided to check the "Red Bin" waste by pouring it all out on a large tarpaulin sheet.

The amount of barely spoilt fruits and vegetables in the red bin, which is destined for the landfill was appalling.

We live in a world made of strange paradoxes. A large group of people have barely enough to eat and a large amount of food is thrown into landfill by the money rich but sense poor people.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by bblost

We live in a world made of strange paradoxes. A large group of people have barely enough to eat and a large amount of food is thrown into landfill by the money rich but sense poor people.

I think there's a considerable body of research that says the problem with feeding the world isn't exactly with not being able to produce enough food but mostly with a) getting the food to the places that need it, and b) the tremendous amount of waste that exists pretty much everywhere.

As part of this we once decided to check the "Red Bin" waste by pouring it all out on a large tarpaulin sheet.

The amount of barely spoilt fruits and vegetables in the red bin, which is destined for the landfill was appalling.

I'm not surprised by your story. Attitudes to recycling and food waste are still so terrible, not just amongst those more fortunate of us in India but in the developed world too. I mean it's an entirely suburban problem but I can't help but judge my neighbours on bin days by the masses of black bin (regular + miscellaneous waste) compared to recycling bin content they produce. I've lived with a few people at uni who were millennial contemporaries but still had alarmingly lax and callous attitudes to recycling and food waste.

It especially does my head in at restaurants when I see people who habitually only eat a portion of a dish and send the rest back (excluding when the dish has an issue and is inedible). I find restaurants that bill folks for wasting food, typically at all you can eat joints, to be a sensible measure to combat these terrible attitudes.

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

Some of the largest U. K. supermarket chains are doing away with the best before date labels on fruits, vegetables, milk, yoghurt and other food products sold by them.

Welcome move to be honest. So much perfectly good food is thrown away by people who aren't willing to do a simple sniff test or just poke/prod the fruit/vegetable to judge for themselves if it's fine. I can understand to some extent with say fresh meat or fish but for most fruit & veg and many dairy products, if stored properly, they really don't go off that quickly.

In the build up to COVID and since, I've seen major supermarkets make some small moves in the right direction. We increasingly see the larger stores have loose fruit and veg, allowing you to buy what you need and obviate harmful single use plastic packaging. Also you see both small green grocers adapting to become zero waste shops but bigger chains like M&S also including zero waste sections (ie, bring your own container and fill up as much as you need for dry foodstuffs like pasta, rice, pulses, grains). I mean a lot of this is pretty much what used to be the norm in the West back in the day and is still the norm in India but hopefully the middle of the market moves overwhelmingly towards more sensible and sustainable practices when it comes to food shopping and eating.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by ads11

It especially does my head in at restaurants when I see people who habitually only eat a portion of a dish and send the rest back (excluding when the dish has an issue and is inedible).

Slightly off topic but relevant to the overall topic.

My wife and I almost always carry a couple of steel containers when going to a restaurant. If there are leftovers, we pack it ourselves. No need of plastic containers from the restaurant.

In fact if the food is over but there are bones, I pack them up for my cats.

I find restaurants that bill folks for wasting food, typically at all you can eat joints, to be a sensible measure to combat these terrible attitudes.

Parents need to instill this in kids from a young age. If kids leave food in the plate, the plate remains on the table till the next meal time when the kid finishes it before taking fresh food.

I have not had to carry out this threat so far as my kids know I will do it and hence clear up the plate.

My wife even imposes penalty on my kids friends who come home. If they are unable to finish food, they get it packed and sent over to their home along with them.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by bblost

My wife and I almost always carry a couple of steel containers when going to a restaurant. If there are leftovers, we pack it ourselves. No need of plastic containers from the restaurant.

That's admirable! We try to make use of any tupperware that any restaurant leftovers or takeout comes in as much as possible. In fact when I was still ordering food regularly (prior to my partner moving in), I found myself unconsciously favouring those restaurants that had made a conscious choice to use biodegradable or compostable packaging for food. I didn't mind paying a slight premium because I was happy to support restaurants that adopted a more considered attitude towards essential take out paraphernalia in this way.

Parents need to instill this in kids from a young age. If kids leave food in the plate, the plate remains on the table till the next meal time when the kid finishes it before taking fresh food.

I still remember actually being invited over to dinner to a family friend's house shortly after we'd moved to India. I was a notoriously fussy eater as a child. Our host gave me quite the stern telling off for tearing off the crust off the bread and not eating them. I wasn't allowed to have any more food till I ate it (her son was an army helicopter pilot I think posted to the Northern frontier, so I got the whole spiel about the value of food and how he risked his life to get it to the jawans). Being rather spoilt by my parents and not being familiar with Indian style tough love as yet, I was aghast. I threw a strop but no dice. Sure enough, hunger forced me to give in (I've not had trouble discarding the crust since). The lesson from that day clearly resonated. I guess you just need a strong memory during a child's formative years to instil the right values, getting in early doors when it comes to food is a good one. So absolutely, I concur with you.

Hopefully enough people do that and especially Gen Z onwards, we'll start seeing positive change when it comes to limiting food wastage. I like to hope Millennials and younger all are mostly on the same page when it comes to awareness of issues such as these.