arks & Spencer is going to remove the best-before date from more than 300 fruit and vegetable products to prevent food waste.
Starting this week, the 137-year-old retailer will, after a successful trial, eliminate dates from fresh produce in its stores.
The company hopes the move will encourage customers to use their judgment to decide when food is no longer fit to eat.
Fruit and vegetables, including popular items that are often thrown away such as apples and potatoes, make up 85% of M&S’ product offering.
Our teams and suppliers work hard to provide fresh, delicious, responsible products at a great price and we must do everything we can to make sure none of it is thrown away
The best-before dates on these products are replaced by a new code that allows M&S store staff to check freshness and quality.
M&S has committed to halving food waste by 2030 as part of its sustainability roadmap, which requires all of its edible surpluses to be redistributed by 2025.
It has also taken other measures to reduce food waste, such as using unsold baguettes and boule loaves to make frozen garlic bread.
Other retailers have made similar decisions in recent years, with: tesco the removal of best-before dates on more than 100 fruit and vegetable products in 2018.
In January of this year, Morrisons announced its plan to remove “use by” dates from 90% of its own branded milk and encouraged customers to instead use a “sniff test” before discarding products.
Andrew Clappen, director of food technology at M&S, said: “We are committed to tackling food waste – our teams and suppliers are working hard to deliver fresh, delicious, responsible products at a high price and we must do everything we can to care make sure none of it gets thrown away.
“To do that, we need to be innovative and ambitious – remove ‘best before’ dates where it’s safe to do so, try new ways to sell our products and encourage our customers to be creative with leftovers and embrace change.”
We are excited to see this move from M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis
Catherine David, Director of Collaboration and Change at the Waste & Resources Action Program (Wrap), said: “We are delighted to see this move by M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis.
“Removing dates on fresh fruits and vegetables could save the equivalent of seven million shopping baskets of food thrown away in our homes.
“We are urging more supermarkets to reduce food waste by removing date labels from fresh produce so people can use their own judgment.”