Victory for the MoS as Ocado axes ‘best before’ label on fruit
ONLINE grocer Ocado is to scrap ‘best before’ labels on some fruit and vegetables in an effort to eradicate food waste.
The move is expected to save thousands of tons of edible food from being needlessly thrown away, by allowing customers to use their own judgment as to when something is still good to eat.
And the decision is another major boost to The Mail on Sunday’s War On Food Waste campaign, which was launched last June with the aim of cutting by 30 per cent the amount of food being dumped in bins by households each week.
Ocado will launch the initiative on Tuesday for items in its fresh produce range, including apples, pears and citrus fruits.
A spokesman said: ‘We have removed the best before date – an indicator of freshness – from a number of our Ocado Own Range produce. This is to help fight food waste and to encourage our customers to make their own decision as to when a food item is past its best.’
The retailer has also signed up to The Waste And Resources Action Programme (WRAP) Courtauld Commitment 2025, a voluntary agreement to cut waste in the grocery sector.
Last year an investigation by the MoS found households were throwing away £900million of perfectly good food each year because supermarkets had misleading best before labels on fruit, vegetables and dairy products.
A Government-backed report published in 2017 had called on supermarkets to remove these labels ‘to encourage consumers to use their judgment on when to eat fresh produce, avoiding waste’. It added: ‘For uncut fresh produce, apply “best before” only where this is judged to be necessary/useful in order to help consumers eat – rather than waste – the product. For all other cases, do not apply a date code.’ Exceptions were made for products that have a short shelf life, such as strawberries, as a date can ensure they are eaten before going off.
The MoS investigation covering Britain’s ten largest supermarket chains found that nearly every one was failing to follow official guidelines on labelling.
Food retailers have also been advised since 2019 that milk, yogurt and other dairy products can now show a ‘best before’ label rather than a ‘use by’ label, unless there is a food safety risk.
This advice is key because ‘best before’ refers to the quality of food, meaning it is still safe to eat when past its best. ‘Use by’ refers to the safety of food, indicating it should not be eaten after that date. In January, Morrisons became the first supermarket to scrap ‘use by’ labels on milk in favour of ‘best before’.
Recent statistics show Ocado had the lowest food waste in the industry last year, at 0.04 per cent. Other supermarkets reported waste levels between two and four per cent.
To mark the second annual Food Waste Action Week, WRAP has called on all large supermarkets and retailers to go further in removing unnecessary date labels.
A recent study by the charity revealed that selling fresh produce loose and removing date labels would prevent 14million shopping baskets of food from being wasted and remove the need for plastic that could fill 1,100 refuse lorries.
Marcus Gover, the charity’s chief executive, said: ‘WRAP research showed that getting rid of best before dates on fresh fruit and veg can help reduce the amount of food we throw away from our homes by a staggering 50,000 tons a year, so we fully support Ocado’s move.
‘We’re delighted to have worked with them to take this important step and are looking forward to more supermarkets joining them and binning best before dates on fresh uncut produce.’