ALDI is to scrap best before dates from fresh fruit & veg, which is around approx 60 items, by the end of the year. Can only be a good thing by reducing waste.
This will include apples and pears, citrus fruits, potatoes, carrots and onions, which could help households to save on food waste each year
Liz Fox, Corporate Responsibility Director at Aldi UK, said: “One of the reasons we are the UK’s cheapest supermarket is because we cut down on waste wherever we see it. And by getting rid of these dates on packaging, we can help customers get even better value by reducing the amount of food that goes to waste at home.
Other Supermarkets scrapping, or have scrapped, best before dates:
ASDA:
We’re removing best before dates on 250 fresh fruit & veg products from Sep 1 to help customers reduce food waste and save money by deciding themselves if the food is edible. They’ll be replaced by a new code our colleagues will use to ensure freshness
Co-op:
Co-op to sell products past ‘Best Before’ to reduce food waste
The Co-op has become the first major retailer to start selling products beyond their ‘Best Before’ date with the aim of significantly reducing food waste in its stores.
The biggest independent retailer in East Anglia (Check your area for others) will now sell products over their ‘Best Before’ date in its 125 food stores for a nominal 10p
Also, The Co-op has announced it will scrap use-by dates on its own-brand yoghurts to help reduce food waste.
The supermarket chain said it will change ‘use-by’ date on pots to instead have ‘best before’ dates.
LIDL:
We choose not to print a 'best before date' on many of our fruit and vegetables, instead opting to print a code showing the date that the product was packaged. By not having a 'best before date' on certain products, it allows the customer to assess by sight and feel whether their fruit or vegetable product is edible or not. This step helps to reduce unnecessary food waste in the home.
Marks and Spencer:
M&S began getting rid of 'best before' dates on around 300 fruit and veg products after a trial.
Andrew Clappen, director of food technology at Marks & Spencer, said: ‘We’re determined to tackle food waste.
‘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.
‘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.’
Morrisons:
Morrisons scrapped use-by dates from 90 per cent of its own-brand milk in January, encouraging its customers to use a ‘sniff test’ instead
Sainsbury's:
From the end of August, the retailer will remove “best before” dates on over 100 fresh produce lines, including pears, onions, tomatoes, and citrus fruits.
A further 130 products, including potatoes, will follow.
An on-pack message “no date helps reduce waste” will instead be present across the fresh produce where the label changes come into play.
Sainsbury’s says the changes could save up to 17million food products going to waste a year.
Tesco:
“Removing best before dates is our way of making it easier for customers to reduce food waste at home and save money in the process” said Mark Little, Tesco’s head of food waste reduction. “It’s simply not right that food goes to waste and we’re going to do everything we can to help.”
Waitrose:
Waitrose says nearly 500 fresh food products will no longer feature the labels from September.
That includes a number of packaged fruit and vegetables, tonnes of which are currently thrown away by Brits who think they are no longer edible after that date.
This will include apples and pears, citrus fruits, potatoes, carrots and onions, which could help households to save on food waste each year
Liz Fox, Corporate Responsibility Director at Aldi UK, said: “One of the reasons we are the UK’s cheapest supermarket is because we cut down on waste wherever we see it. And by getting rid of these dates on packaging, we can help customers get even better value by reducing the amount of food that goes to waste at home.
Other Supermarkets scrapping, or have scrapped, best before dates:
ASDA:
We’re removing best before dates on 250 fresh fruit & veg products from Sep 1 to help customers reduce food waste and save money by deciding themselves if the food is edible. They’ll be replaced by a new code our colleagues will use to ensure freshness
Co-op:
Co-op to sell products past ‘Best Before’ to reduce food waste
The Co-op has become the first major retailer to start selling products beyond their ‘Best Before’ date with the aim of significantly reducing food waste in its stores.
The biggest independent retailer in East Anglia (Check your area for others) will now sell products over their ‘Best Before’ date in its 125 food stores for a nominal 10p
Also, The Co-op has announced it will scrap use-by dates on its own-brand yoghurts to help reduce food waste.
The supermarket chain said it will change ‘use-by’ date on pots to instead have ‘best before’ dates.
LIDL:
We choose not to print a 'best before date' on many of our fruit and vegetables, instead opting to print a code showing the date that the product was packaged. By not having a 'best before date' on certain products, it allows the customer to assess by sight and feel whether their fruit or vegetable product is edible or not. This step helps to reduce unnecessary food waste in the home.
Marks and Spencer:
M&S began getting rid of 'best before' dates on around 300 fruit and veg products after a trial.
Andrew Clappen, director of food technology at Marks & Spencer, said: ‘We’re determined to tackle food waste.
‘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.
‘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.’
Morrisons:
Morrisons scrapped use-by dates from 90 per cent of its own-brand milk in January, encouraging its customers to use a ‘sniff test’ instead
Sainsbury's:
From the end of August, the retailer will remove “best before” dates on over 100 fresh produce lines, including pears, onions, tomatoes, and citrus fruits.
A further 130 products, including potatoes, will follow.
An on-pack message “no date helps reduce waste” will instead be present across the fresh produce where the label changes come into play.
Sainsbury’s says the changes could save up to 17million food products going to waste a year.
Tesco:
“Removing best before dates is our way of making it easier for customers to reduce food waste at home and save money in the process” said Mark Little, Tesco’s head of food waste reduction. “It’s simply not right that food goes to waste and we’re going to do everything we can to help.”
Waitrose:
Waitrose says nearly 500 fresh food products will no longer feature the labels from September.
That includes a number of packaged fruit and vegetables, tonnes of which are currently thrown away by Brits who think they are no longer edible after that date.
26 Comments
sorted byI use Olio and that is supposed to reduce waste and landfill but over the last few Months more and more items have been collected from stores (mainly tesco) where they are inedible on the last day of their best before. I collected 16 paninis yesterday, and every single one had mold on. The best before date (last date for sale) was yesterday. So I think shops are already pushing the best before dates.
I love Aldi stuff but quite often I've had their cobs etc that are moldy 1 day after the best before. So they really do push the dates.
Just make sure you check your purchases thoroughly if near the best before date and even more so on fruit and veg.
Bread going off more quickly, especially if ordered online; having to freeze to make sure got eatable in house.
nothing stops you using common sense in your own home but obfuscating freshness at the store level is just about profit. (edited)
This will be confusing to some though. A relative is known for saying such things as, “These oranges must be eaten today”. My reply was always, “Why, are they going to explode at midnight?”
Taking dates off is a cynical way to save money at the consumers expense, shifting the waste from shop to customer.
I took packaging showing barcodes etc back to Asda a while back. The CS woman said I should have brought back the mouldy dates as well. Who wants to handle/store a load of mouldy/rotten produce for weeks until they go back to a particular store?
Had some pitta bread that went mouldy a day before its BBE just the other week and some supermarkets that rhyme with middle seem to be quite poor at shelf life.
How can Morrisons sell Milk without an exp date? How are you meant to sniff test sealed milk?
This is another example of cartel behaviour where they pass food waste from the stores to customers, while keeping the profits.
Also, it is impossible to check the freshness in fruit in plastic packaging such as blueberries & raspberries.