Sainsbury’s is switching from use-by dates to best-before dates across its own-brand milk range in a bid to reduce food waste.
The move will affect 44 products in total, including all fresh and organic milk sold across England, Scotland and Wales, and will apply to over 730m pints of milk sold by the supermarket each year.
The updated labelling will roll out in the new year, with the change set to be complete by the end of February 2024.
This comes as research from climate NGO, Wrap, shows that milk is the third most wasted food in the UK, with over 490m pints thrown away each year, often because it has passed the use-by date.
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According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), use-by dates are linked to food safety, whereas best-before dates relate to food quality. As such, products should never be consumed past use-by dates, however, foods with a best-before date can be eaten after its expiry.
As a result, Sainsbury’s is encouraging customers to follow the FSA’s guidance which recommends sensory cues to see if milk with a best-before date label has gone bad, such as sniffing the product.
Sainsbury’s director of corporate responsibility and sustainability, Ruth Cranston, said: “Around a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Combatting food waste is one of our top priorities and we are continuously innovating to tackle this issue, all the way from farms and suppliers, right to our customers’ homes.
“By switching to best-before dates on our milk we are empowering customers to make their own decisions on whether their food is good to eat, helping to prevent them from disposing of food too early.”
This follows a move by M&S in June to remove ‘use by’ dates across its RSPCA assured fresh milk as part of its commitment to halve food waste by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040.
The change also comes as Sainsbury’s is investing £6m to pay its dairy farmers more from next month – £4.3m of which will go towards giving farmers an additional fixed 1p per litre of milk on top of the independently calculated cost of production price currently paid to farmers.
1 Comment. Leave new
So how does the customer know if the milk they are buying has been sat on the supermarket shelf for a week or a day? I purchase your fresh produce on a regular basis and because this does not have any dates on it I now find that I am throwing more produce away because it rots quicker. Surely you should at least put a date on the goods that lets the customer know when the produce or milk has been packaged.