The government has taken steps to simplify the confusion over food date stamps by scrapping the ‘sell by’ date. This date is only for the guidance of shop workers and has no relevance to food safety but often leads to perfectly good food being wasted.
Research has shown that confusing food labeling is a major reason why UK households throw away more than five million tonnes of food that is still edible each year.New guidelines, produced with the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), stipulate that packaging should only carry ‘use by’ labels to show that a food must be eaten by that date, and ‘best before’ to indicate that food may have passed its best, but is not dangerous to consume.
The British Retail Consortium warned Defra not to "blame" retailers' use of ‘display until' labels for adding to food waste.
"If the government really wants to make a difference to reducing food waste it should be educating consumers about the two basic terms – use-by and best-before. This system is carefully used by retailers and it isn't complicated," said Andrew Opie, food director at BRC.
While it is important to be aware of ‘use by’ dates, especially when preparing food for at risk groups such as the very young, very old or infirm, a degree of common sense can be used. After all, a cheese that has been matured for 18 months will not suddenly become unsafe to eat 14 days after being packed. Similarly, a piece of chicken that has been sitting in a hot car for four hours will probably have gone off in the fridge well before it’s’ use by’ deadline.
