Supermarkets urged to sell more loose produce to cut waste

● Campaign to cut millions of tons of food that is thrown away every year

Retailers should sell fresh fruit and vegetables loose and leave “best before” dates off packaging as part of efforts to cut food waste, experts have said.

New advice for packaging and labelling fresh produce has been produced by waste reduction body Wrap, the Food Standards Agency and the Environment Department to tackle one of the biggest areas of food waste.

Around a fifth of food brought into UK homes ends up as waste, including £4 billion worth of binned fruit and vegetables, costing the average household hundreds of pounds a year.

The new advice encourages retailers to offer fresh produce in a range of pack sizes and loose, where it is suitable to do so – which can cut plastic packaging and give customers the opportunity to buy the amount they need.leaving off the “best before” date on some packaged items can also help reduce waste, for example with potatoes, by encouraging people to use their judgment more.

It comes as a new retail survey by Wrap, looking at 2,000 products in nearly 60 supermarkets, said it has seen good progress on implementing some of its previous recommendations.

But while supermarkets and brands have implemented best-practice guidance on date labels, product life, pack size and storage and freezing advice, more work needs to be done in a number of areas.

Peter Maddox, director at Wrap, said public concern over plastic packaging had increased since the last survey in 2015, and the guidance had been updated to deal with single-use plastics for fresh produce.

“Removal of packaging must be done carefully to avoid food waste, and we now we have a clear set of principles that will help limit plastic use, and ensure removal is done in a safe and sustainable way.

“The other significant development we recommend is removing best before dates from uncut fresh produce where this doesn’t risk increasing food waste, and the guidance helps this decisionmaking,” he said.

Wrap said better labelling can help customers reduce the two million tonnes of food thrown away because it is not eaten in time, and the 1.2 million tonnes that ends up in the bin because too much has been cooked or served.