UK – British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer, Tesco has announced plans to remove ‘use by’ from all its yogurt packs and replace it with ‘best before’ to reduce waste.
The move includes Tesco’s Creamfields Greek Style Yogurt, Greek Style Yogurt, Finest Lemon Curd Yogurt and Creamfields Berry Medley Low Fat Yogurt.
Tesco hopes that this move will “enable customers to use their own judgment on whether to eat a product” by preventing “perfectly edible food” from being thrown away.
Tesco Dairy lead technical manager Amy Walker said: “We know some shoppers may be unclear about the difference between ‘Use By’ and ‘Best Before’ dates on food and this can lead to perfectly edible items being thrown away unnecessarily.
“We have decided to remove ‘Use By’ dates on yogurts where it is safe to do so, after extensive testing which reveals that the acidity of the product acts as a natural preservative.
“These lines represent a significant proportion of our own-brand yogurts, and we hope to phase the change in between now and the end of June.”
The ‘Best Before’ dates are mentioned on food packaging by retailers to indicate that the quality of the product is not as good as it previously was, but it is safe to eat.
The latest move is part of Tesco’s wider initiative to reduce waste. It began in 2018 after the retailer removed ‘Best Before’ dates from nearly 170 of its fruit and vegetable product lines.
The retailer has already achieved a 45 percent reduction in food waste across its operations since 2016/17. However, it knows there is still more to do despite just 0.35 percent of food it handled, last year, ending up as waste.
Tesco takes great care to accurately forecast the amount of food needed in each store, but where products are approaching their use-by or best-before dates, store colleagues can print a yellow sticker with a new price that is calculated by a computer algorithm.
A survey by the food waste prevention group WRAP, reveals that UK consumers waste 54,000 tonnes of yogurt each year, a number that is equivalent to nine percent of yogurt purchases.
WRAP claims that half of the yogurts that are thrown away are in unopened packs and 70 percent of packs wasted in the home are thrown away due to the product having passed its date.
Catherine David, Director of Collaboration & Change at WRAP said: “For yogurts, applying a ‘Best before’ date rather than a ‘Use by’ date means that people can use their judgment to eat beyond that date, giving people longer to use what they buy.
“WRAP welcomes this change from our partner, Tesco, which will help reduce food waste in our homes. Wasting food feeds climate change and costs us money – with the average family spending over £700 a year on good food which ends up in the bin.”
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