Clearer food labelling plan 'to bring an end to waste'

[Maggy J]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13111033

"Best before" date labels could be scrapped in an attempt to cut the £680 worth of food thrown away by the average UK household each year.
New government guidance to shops aims to put more focus on "use by" dates on items such as prawns and yoghurt which have a definite shelf life.
The initiative follows consultation with manufacturers and retailers.
It will also target "sell by" and "display until" labels which it is thought add to consumers' confusion.

Seems like a good idea..but as someone who likes sorting through the sell by date sale shelf for reduced bargains to put in the freezer I think I may lose out.

[heero_yuy]

I only ever really take notice of the "use by" date. The others are very dependant upon the conditions under which product is kept. Best before is often a texture / colour / taste issue rather than the product becoming unsafe.

I don't think it will really affect those freezer bargains on the reduced shelves that we like to take advantage of.

Anything that reduces confusion and cuts unnecessary waste has to be a good move IMO.

[Taf]

During my time in the RAF we often ate from "compo" tins dated over 30 years' prior!

I think it was only introduced to guarantee how long vitamin content would probably last.

[Hom3r]

Well we go by the rule, if in doubt, chuck it out.

Most food will smell bad or have mould when off.

[nomadking]

At the moment I can buy fresh bread and know roughly when is the last day it will be edible(depends on type, brand etc). If I have no idea when it was produced, I could easily end up having to throw it away once I opened it and before being able to use any of it. More waste and yet more cost. The same goes for other products. It may seem to be ok at the time of purchase, but you will have no idea of how long it will remain edible for, 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks or 2 hours?

[martyh]

I see no point in "best before" labels ,all they do is confuse comsumers with "use by" labels ,and even the "use by" is misleading ,i eat loads of stuff that is past it's sell by or use by dates

[Osem]

Whatever happened to common sense? Far too many people just don't have any these days and seem to need to be told everything in order to function. Providing fresh/chilled food has been properly stored, exceeding a notional use by date by a couple of days does no harm whatsover. With dried and frozen foods, the margins are far higher as you'd expect and we've never paid any attention to sell by dates in these cases. With high risk foods, of course, if I were in any real doubt I wouldn't take a chance if something looked/smelt bad or the packaging was damaged in some way but the sad fact is that a lot of people just bin anything that exceeds that little date on the label regardless of what it is, how it's been stored and what it looks/smells like. Not all that long ago I found a large , long forgotten tin of dried mashed potato lurking on a shelf in our garage/storeroom. It was 11 years old and about 8 years out of date but just out of interest I opened it and tried it. There was nothing wrong with it at all (except that it was dried mash of course... )

[nomadking]

So you've never seen how staff in supermarkets treat chilled/frozen food? They leave boxes of food at room temperature(even in summer) out unattended for periods of time. They bring out several boxes of chilled items, take a few items from a box to refill the shelf and then eventually take the boxes with items remaining back. This probably gets repeated a few times with each box of items. Chilling does not stop bacterial growth, it merely slows it down.

Buying stuff that seems ok on the day of purchase is ok if you're going to consume it on the day of purchase, but how do you know if it will be ok in 7 days time? Then there are items in containers of one sort or another, where it is a lot less easy to determine freshness etc.

[Nugget]

In fairness, the use by date is there for a very good reason - it's directly related to food safety. I work for a chilled fish supplier, and you'd be astonished how much the levels of potentially dangerous micro organisms can grow from the day of the use by date to the day after - I'm actually a complete nazi when it comes to getting rid of food that has a use by date, because I know how bad it can be.

In my opinion, best before is slightly misleading, but only people because don't have enough information - the phrase itself properly explains that it's only at best quality before, so may well be fine after that date, but that's why it's displayed as a month (and year if applicable). There really is a good reason why the use by shown on pack is a specific date

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Nugget

In fairness, the use by date is there for a very good reason - it's directly related to food safety. I work for a chilled fish supplier, and you'd be astonished how much the levels of potentially dangerous micro organisms can grow from the day of the use by date to the day after - I'm actually a complete nazi when it comes to getting rid of food that has a use by date, because I know how bad it can be.

In my opinion, best before is slightly misleading, but only people because don't have enough information - the phrase itself properly explains that it's only at best quality before, so may well be fine after that date, but that's why it's displayed as a month (and year if applicable). There really is a good reason why the use by shown on pack is a specific date

totaly agree ,thats why i said the "best before dates" just confuse the issue of what is safe and not safe to eat

[Matth]

How do you know how old something is, if there are no dates, it may not be be perishable, and it may be safe indefinitely.

The answer is education and clearer labelling.

A "USE BY" date should be in red, it's there on products which will become unsafe or unusable with longer storage.

A "DISPLAY UNTIL" date conveys very little, mainly for stock management, and clearly, the product should be able to stand reasonable storage.

"BEST BEFORE", actually tells you that something IS expected to be safe for longer, just that the quality may be impaired.

Now cereal, found that every box of one I liked (and was on special) was past it's best before, now if they'd been allowed to heaviliy discount them, I'd have had a couple, since dry cereal in a sealed bag, is not going to deteriorate that fast - that said, I would't fancy a cereal that was a year past it's best date - and that's the thing, if a box got pushed to the back, on your shelf, or the stores, how do you know HOW old it is, with no date.

[Nugget]

Just out of curiosity, why should a use by date be in red?

[Mr_love_monkey]

Originally Posted by Nugget

Just out of curiosity, why should a use by date be in red?

so that colour blind people can complain?

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by Mr_love_monkey

so that colour blind people can complain?

But what if they thought it was green? For go!

[Mr_love_monkey]

Personally I think it's all a bit daft - why not just have an advertising campaign to explain to people what 'best before' and 'use by' mean.

All that's going to happen is they'll introduce another labelling system that just confuses people even more - look at the 'traffic light' system..

---------- Post added 20-04-2011 at 00:00 ---------- Previous post was 19-04-2011 at 23:59 ----------

Originally Posted by Nugget

But what if they thought it was green? For go!

as in 'go to the toilet'?