A quarter (25%) of Brits throw away food past its ‘best before’ without checking it’s edible and a third admit to throwing away food solely due to the ‘best before’ date, according to new data.
The research from social impact company Too Good To Go found that a further one in 10 don’t feel confident in explaining the definition of the ‘sell by’ date on food items and 14% are not confident in explaining the ‘display until’ date.
As a result, Brits are wasting 19.4m food items every day, equating to 135.8m items a week.
While Brits go to the supermarket twice a week, Too Good To Go found that 45% admit to throwing away items due to needing to replace items.
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Younger generations are contributing the most to usable food waste with 16 to 24 year olds admitting to throwing away three items per week on average, compared to over 55s throwing away only one item per week.
Over half of adults over 55 keep food past its ‘best before’ date, whereas only 28% of those aged 16 to 24 do.
Over the past two years, many of the UK’s leading supermarkets have removed ‘best before’ dates from fresh fruit and vegetable lines in a bid to limit food waste.
Too Good To Go co-founder Jamie Crummie said: “We are on a mission to fight food waste, and believe that by adapting your habits you make the most out of everything you buy.
“One of the reasons households are a main contributor to food waste is because many of us don’t know the difference between ‘best before’, ‘sell by’, ‘display until’ and ‘use by’. This is causing a whopping 10% of Europe’s food waste – 9,000,000 tonnes across Europe each year.
“At Too Good To Go, we are encouraging households to sense-check food instead of blindly binning it due to a lapsed date with our ‘Look, Smell, Taste, Don’t Waste’ advice. It is a simple way for households to reduce food waste, save money and cut down their emissions.”
