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Ministers scrap sell-by dates in bid to to cut food waste
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Ministers scrap sell-by dates in bid to to cut food waste
16/09/2011
Defra has announced that it will recomment that sell-by and display-until dates be dropped from packaging as they confuse consumers and are purely a method of stock control for the multiples.
Use-by and best-before dates will, however, remain. Use-by dates will be required for food that can become dangerous to consume after a certain date – such as soft cheeses, smoked fish and ready-prepared meals – while best-before dates will be applied to foods that may lose quality but are still safe to consume.
It is estimated that 5m tonnes of edible food is needlessly thrown away each year in the UK, the equivalent of £680 for a household with children.
The Food and Drink Federation and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have backed the move, which is also likely to garner support from those in the packaging industry who have argued for some time that food waste is a more important environment issue than packaging waste.
However, the British Retail Consortium has criticised the changes, saying that consumer education on the meanings of the various dates printed on packaging would solve the issue.
‘Confusion’
Announcing the plans, environment secretary Caroline Spelman said: “We want to end the food labelling confusion and make it clear once and for all when food is good and safe to eat. “This simpler and safer date labelling guide will help households cut down on the £12bn worth of good food that ends up in the bin.”
Liz Redmond of the FSA said: “A number of different dates can be found on our food, so we need to make sure that everyone knows the difference between them.”
FDF director of food safety and science Barbara Gallani said: “FDF fully supports the continued use of ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ date marking as these provide very valuable information for consumers on product safety and quality and we encourage our members to apply best practice when deciding on the most appropriate labelling for a specific product. “However, as research from WRAP suggests, shoppers are still confused by the difference between ‘use by’ and ‘best before’, meaning that there is a significant challenge around consumer understanding.”
‘Retail practices’
But British Retail Consortium food director Andrew Opie said: “Helping consumers understand that food past its best-before date can still be eaten or cooked could contribute to reducing food waste and saving people money. “The government should be spreading that message, not focusing on retail practices.”
Source: Packaging News UK
packagingnews.co.uk
( Source: PACKAGING NEWS UK )
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“The government should be spreading that message, not focusing on retail practices.” (Picture: Packaging News UK)
