M&S removes best before dates across fruit and veg

M&S is removing best before dates from a range of fresh produce to reduce in-store and household food waste.

Best before dates will be removed from the labelling of over 300 fruit and vegetable products – 85% of M&S’ produce offering – including commonly wasted items apples, potatoes and broccoli. Dates will be replaced with a new code which M&S said its staff will use to ensure freshness.

The change, which is being rolled out across all M&S UK stores from this week, is designed to encourage customers to throw away less edible food at home by using their judgement.

Research from WRAP shows that an estimated 6.6m million tonnes of food is thrown away by UK households a year.

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.

Reducing food waste is hugely important to families – M&S’ latest Family Matters Index revealed that 72% of UK families are taking steps to reduce household waste, with those in Northern Ireland the most determined (77%). Over half (55%) of families say it’s important that the shops they buy from make it easier for them to make more sustainable choices.

Andrew Clappen, director of food technology, said M&S is 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.

“The other side of the challenge is making sure anything edible we don’t sell reaches those who need it most. By partnering with Neighbourly since 2015 we’ve ensured over 44million meals are redistributed to local communities. Our promise as we aim for our target of halving food waste is to keep searching for solutions while we maintain the standards and value our customers expect.”

An excited Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at WRAP said  the move will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis.

“Removing dates on fresh fruit and veg can save the equivalent of 7 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.”

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