British supermarkets throw away 100,000 still-edible food items every year, according to research from The Grocer, with the total waste tossed out by the UK as a whole enough to feed 30 million people a year.
Much of this comes from households chucking out everyday items bought fresh but not used in time, notably bread, milk and bananas, rather than businesses, but mass grocery retailers have taken steps to try and address the problem.
The rise of waste-cutting delivery services such as Oddbox is one example, another is supermarkets removing sell-by and use-by dates from the labels on packages of fruit and vegetables in a bid to reduce waste and encourage shoppers to judge for themselves whether they believe produce is still ready to use.
But for consumers still seeking reassurance about the age of the items they pick up in the fresh produce aisle, one TikTok user thinks they have cracked the code.
A viral video by Finance Girl Bargains, who claims to be a Tesco employee, is captioned “Tesco staff training taught me the higher the number the fresher the product” and sees the content creator present two packages of mangetout to the camera.
The first features the code A3, the second A6.
This suggests that the supermarket is using Julian Date codes to signal to staff when a particular item was first placed on sale. The letter indicates the month (A for January, B for February etc) while the number indicates the day.
This means that the first packet seen was added to shelves on 3 January and the second on 6 January, meaning the latter is seemingly the fresher of the two.
Responders to the video point out that while other supermarkets might use the same system, it is not universal, with other retailers having their own approaches.
“In Morrisons, it’s the letter is the month J- Jan F- Feb etc. Obviously, June and July are JN and JY,” one commenter points out.
It also only applies to pre-packaged fruit, not loose items sold separately.
Shoppers are nevertheless still encouraged to judge the produce they are presented with on its own merits to help supermarkets cut waste amid the cost of living crisis and for the sake of the environment.
Other ways to limit food waste at home include drawing up a detailed weekly meal plan before hitting the shops to ensure you only buy what you know you will use. You can also keep fresh fruit and vegetables in the fridge so that they last longer, place a sheet of kitchen paper in salad bags to soak up moisture and delay spoilage, make leftovers into new meals and freeze unused items with a view to future use.
