Food sell-by dates to be phased out

14-Sep-2011 - Last updated on 12-Mar-2017 at 00:17 GMT

Food waste: tackled by scrapping sell-by dates

Sell-by dates will be phased out in a move to cut the £12bn-worth of food wasted every year — a problem highlighted by the Publican’s Morning Advertiser last week.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said sell and display-until information will be replaced by “use-by” and “best before” dates.

The organisation has produced guidance to help businesses decide which date information would be best to use, as one is required by law.

The guidance has been produced in consultation with Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), supermarkets, consumer groups, manufacturers and food law enforcement bodies.

Unilever Food Solutions last week spearheaded a campaign to help reduce food waste in the hospitality industry, with the backing of WRAP, Whitbread Group, Sodexo and food campaigners.

WRAP is also launching a voluntary agreement within the hospitality sector next spring. Head of retail programmes Andy Dawe confirmed that several major pub companies were in discussion for involvement.

Whitbread Group has already achieved fully segregated food waste recycling at 411 sites since the first trials 18 months ago in partnership with Biogen and Veolia. It expects all sites to be on board by the end of 2011.

Meanwhile, Unilever has produced a waste reduction kit called Wise up on Waste that offers simple answers to caterers for monitoring and measuring food waste. It includes a manual waste audit that only takes around 15 minutes to complete daily.