80m pints of milk wasted ‘as use-by dates are too strict’

MILLIONS of pints of milk are being thrown away unnecessarily because of overly cautious use-by dates, food waste campaigners say.

They say a study shows that supermarket milk can be perfectly safe to drink up to seven days after the official use-by date.

The study was commissioned by the environmental campaign group Feedback, which argues that people are throwing away huge amounts of milk without good reason.

The organisation said some 80million pints of milk are being poured down the sink every year because they have gone past the use-by date. It argues that this could be cut by 30million by adding just one day to the official use-by period. But it is calling on supermarkets to extend the time period that milk is considered safe by as much as three days.

The testing was carried out at the University of Chester’s NoWFOOD Centre using milk from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.

Feedback said it could help to replace the use-by date system with something else for milk and leave it up to people to decide for themselves when it is safe to drink. In countries such as Norway and Denmark milk is labelled with a ‘best before’ date to discourage unnecessary waste.

While most people can smell if milk is off, other bugs, such as listeria, can multiply without creating any obvious signs. Consequently, retailers and food watchdogs argue that it is important to abide by date labels on fresh food. Supermarkets argue that such labelling needs to take account of variables such as milk spending a lot of time out of a fridge, or fridge temperatures being set too high.

But Feedback argues that with the ‘buffer’ for milk stored in optimum conditions as high as seven days, a more realistic approach which aims to cut waste could be adopted.

This may include giving better guidance on labels about storage, including the recommended fridge temperature, based on the general rule that they should be no higher than 4C (39F).

Carina Millstone, executive director of Feedback, said: ‘We knew from experience that milk frequently outlives its use-by date by quite some time. Now our testing of use-by dates has revealed the excess of caution which is driving UK households to pour countless pints of milk down the drain. By extending use-by dates by three or more days, and providing very clear guidance on fridge temperatures and other storage best practice, supermarkets can use their enormous market power for less waste.’

Currently, the nation is throwing out some 10.2million tonnes of good food a year with an estimated value of £20billion – £300 per person, according to the waste charity WRAP.

Dr Judith Bryans, chief executive of industry trade body Dairy UK, said: ‘Use-by dates on products such as milk are there to protect consumers and are backed by robust scientific evidence which determines the appropriate life span of a product.

‘The dairy industry works hard to identify all solutions for reducing food waste, without compromising the safety and quality of its products.’