Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman is expected to announce the change next month, which is also expected see the removal of "sell by" and "display until" labels and won’t involve any new legislation. She said recently:
“I am dismayed so much food goes to waste. If the date labels are part of the problem, it’s one thing we should be able to improve.”
The proposed changes aim to put more focus on "use by" dates in an attempt to reduce the 5.3 million tonnes of edible food and drink which is thrown away every year. Research by the supermarket chain Morrisons found that 55 per cent of people will throw away food if is past its best-before date, even though it is still safe to eat.
According to waste-reduction organisation Wrap, 1.3 million unopened yoghurt pots are discarded every day, as well as 440,000 ready meals, 5,500 whole chickens, 4.4 million apples, 5.1 million potatoes and 1.6 million bananas.
They also say that a single household will throw away 8.3 million tons of food and drink in a year, and Wrap estimates that more than five million tons of this is still edible.
The forthcoming guidance may see the introduction of new labels highlighting the health risks of leaving food on the shelf or in the fridge for long periods, with special warnings for products such as fish, prawns and eggs. It is envisaged that other foods such as bread and some vegetables, would carry much simpler labels.
Further information is not yet available, but we will provide you with full details as soon as they become known.
Meanwhile, high-tech solutions to the problem of identifying when food is going bad are currently being developed by scientists at Strathclyde University. Their ‘intelligent’ food wrapping which changes colour when the contents are going bad, could be on the shelves within two years.
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