M&S announces it is making major change in supermarkets that will leave Britons divided
The move follows last year’s removal of best-before dates from more than 300 fruits and vegetables by the retailer
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M&S has scrapped use-by dates on its milk and will instead advise customers to do a sniff test to determine whether it is safe to consume.
The company has warned that around 490 million pints, or £270million of food, is being thrown away in the UK each year, prompting the decision to reduce food waste.
That works out to roughly 18-and-a-half pints per home, typically because the product’s use-by date has passed.
The move follows last year’s removal of best-before dates from more than 300 fruits and vegetables by the retailer.
The Food Standards Agency encourages people to use sensory cues to determine if food is fine to eat
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M&S is not the first retailer to modify the food labelling on its products in an effort to reduce waste, with Tesco revealing last month that it will replace the use-by and best-before dates on 30 of its own-brand yogurts.
Use-by dates were also eliminated from Co-op’s own-brand fruit and vegetables in February, while use-by dates on Morrisons’ milk were eliminated last year.
The Food Standards Agency encourages people to use “sensory cues” to determine if food with a best before date is fine to eat.
It recommends sniffing dairy products, looking for visible mould on bread and tasting biscuits or crisps to check if they are stale.
However, this approach does not apply to items with a use-by date, as even if it looks and smells fine, it can contain bugs that cause food poisoning.
M&S said the move is in line with its commitment to tackle food waste, with milk being the third most wasted food in the home, behind only potatoes and bread.
The average family with children throws away £60 worth of food a month, more than £700 per year, according to sustainability charity Waste and Resources Action Programme.
Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at the charity said: “By changing its British and organic fresh milk to a best before date, M&S is instantly helping its customers save money and cut waste by giving them more time to consume the milk they buy.”
It's expected that around £270 million of food is being thrown away in the UK each year
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She added: “This type of change to labelling is fundamental in helping people reduce household food waste, which currently tops more than 6.6 million tons each year across the UK.”
Product-life testing by WRAP has shown that fruit and veg can be good to eat well beyond the best-before date when stored in optimal conditions.
For broccoli, the difference between the best-before date and the first sign of deterioration was found to be 15 days.
For potatoes it was 20 days, and with apples it was in excess of 70 days.