M&S is set to scrap best before dates on over 300 lines of fruit and vegetables in a bid to tackle food waste.
The change, which is being rolled out across all M&S UK stores from this week, is designed to encourage customers to throw away less edible food at home.
As a result, the dates will be replaced with a new code which M&S store colleagues will use to ensure freshness and quality is maintained.
This comes as research from The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) shows that an estimated 6.6 million tonnes of food is thrown away by UK households a year.
As part of its Plan A sustainability roadmap, M&S has pledged to halve food waste by 2030, with 100% of edible surplus to be redistributed by 2025.
As well as reducing the number of best before dates, the retailer has also donated over 44 million meals to charities by partnering with Neighbourly since 2015, where store teams work closely with their local communities to ensure edible food surplus is redistributed.
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“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,” M&S director of food technology, Andrew Clappen, said.
“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.”
WRAP director of collaboration and change Catherine David, added: “We’re thrilled to see this move from M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis.
“Removing dates on fresh fruit and veg can save the equivalent of seven million shopping baskets of food being binned in our homes. We urge more supermarkets to get ahead on food waste by axing date labels from fresh produce, allowing people to use their own judgement.”
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