Supermarket M&S is removing best before dates from a range of fresh produce to help reduce in-store and household food waste.
According to the retailer, best before dates will be removed from the labelling of over 300 fruit and vegetable products (representing 85 % of the company’s fresh produce offer) including commonly wasted items apples, potatoes and broccoli. Dates will be replaced with a new code which M&S colleagues will use to ensure freshness and quality is maintained in store.
The change is designed to encourage customers to throw away less edible food at home by using their judgement, as research from WRAP shows that an estimated 6.6m million tonnes of food is thrown away by UK households a year.
Andrew Clappen, Director of Food Technology, said, “We’re determined to tackle food waste – our teams and suppliers work hard to deliver fresh, delicious, responsibly sourced produce at great value and we need to do all we can to make sure none of it gets thrown away. To do that, we need to be innovative and ambitious – removing best before dates where safe to do so, trialling new ways to sell our products and galvanising our customers to get creative with leftovers and embrace change.”
Catherine David, Director of Collaboration and Change at WRAP, added, “We’re thrilled to see this move from M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis. Removing dates on fresh fruit and veg can save the equivalent of seven million shopping baskets of food being binned in our homes. We urge more supermarkets to get ahead on food waste by axing date labels from fresh produce, allowing people to use their own judgement.”
As part of its Plan A sustainability roadmap, M&S has pledged to halve food waste by 2030, with 100% of edible surplus to be redistributed by 2025.