As a result of a national strategy to cut down on the amount of food you throw away, Sainsbury’s has stopped labelling its produce, ‘freeze on day of purchase’, regardless of ‘sell by’ or ‘use by’ dates. In its place, labels on food will advise customers to freeze food any time before the use by date, although freezing will still be recommended as soon as possible for the sake of your wellbeing.
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) believes that date labels and store guidance in fact confuse customers, which therefore adds to the estimated 2.9 million tonnes of food and drink thrown away by consumers before it is even cooked or served. WRAP is a governmental advisory body and backs Sainsbury’s new initiative.
Sainsbury’s carried out research which revealed that 62% of UK households regularly use the freezer to lengthen the life of food. The results of a separate study by WRAP were that only 21% of those people polled had frozen food nearing its use by date during the past week.
According to Andrew Parry, WRAP’s consumer food waste prevention manager, Marks and Spencer have also begun the process and WRAP are ‘actively talking to the other retailers as well’.
Sainsbury’s new initiative has the approval of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), as noted by the FSA’s food safety expert Bob Martin, ‘The most important thing is to freeze food before its use by date as that is the only date that relates to food safety. Our advice continues to be to follow the use by date and treat all other dates more flexibly.’
Therefore, any strategy that reduces waste, without compromising food safety, is welcomed by the FSA, and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs reported that it estimates this new labelling system labelling could help households save £12 billion worth of good food that would otherwise be chucked.