The measure, which will be applied from September, aims to reduce “the volume of food waste in British households by asking customers to exercise their judgment”, according to the chain.
British supermarkets Waitrose announced Monday to withdraw the recommended use-by dates on nearly 500 products, to avoid discouraging its customers from consuming food that is still good and thus fight against food waste.
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From September, Waitrose will remove “best before(best before), an indicative date beyond which the consumption of a product remains safe, on nearly 500 fresh products, in particular packaged fruits and vegetables, the company announced in a press release.
Britons ‘throw away 4.5 million tonnes of food every year’
This measure “aims to reduce the volume of food waste in UK households by asking customers to exercise their judgmentwhen deciding whether a product is still consumable, the high-end supermarket chain added. “Food waste is still a major problem“and British households”throw away 4.5 million tons of edible food every yearsays Marija Rompani, sustainability director of the John Lewis department store group, parent company of Waitrose.
The indicator “best beforeis essentially linked to the taste or nutritional quality of a product, and corresponds to the “date of minimum durability” in France. On the other hand, the statement “use by“(consume before), which appears on perishable products, is an imperative mention and its non-observance presents health risks, in the same way as the deadline of consumption across the Channel. “We estimate that removing dates from fresh fruits and vegetables could save the equivalent of 7 million baskets of food from the trash“, according to Waitrose.
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The company is following in the footsteps of other British brands, such as the sector giant Tesco, which had removed the recommended consumption dates on a hundred products from 2018, or more recently Marks and Spencer which had done the same on 300 references. . Morrisons, another supermarket chain, announced in January the removal not of the recommended date but of the best before date on 90% of its private label milk, encouraging its customers to smell the contents of the bottle to know s is always good.
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