Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has announced major changes to its date labels on packaging for 276 own brand products in a bid to help reduce food waste. From the end of this month, the retailer will begin the removal of ‘best before’ dates from a raft of fresh produce and a further 130 products will follow.
These upcoming changes could help UK households to save 11,000 tonnes of food each year, the equivalent of 17 million products. It follows similar moves by rivals including Waitrose, Tesco and Morrisons.
Additionally, Sainsbury’s will switch all ‘use by’ dates on own-brand yoghurts to ‘best before’ dates by the end of this year a move which will affect 46 product lines. Research from Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) revealed that 54,000 tonnes of yoghurt is wasted a year. For 70 per cent of this waste, the date label was cited as the reasons for throwing it away.
