Supermarkets removing dates from fruit and veg

[gingerheid]

Given that something like 30% of food that's bought ends up getting thrown out, that may not be a bad thing!

I'll still only do shopping once a week, so I'd be less likely to try and buy things that I hope will still be fresh on days 4, 5 & 6...

If they wanted to cut waste then the way ahead would be to sell me smaller amounts. Last night I bought a full cucumber and 6 tomatoes. If it had been possible I'd have bought a half cucumber and two tomatoes, which would be more like what I can eat.

 

[Essan]

With milk I only ever buy 1 litre cartons which I use up in 2-3 days. Milk goes off much more quickly once air is in the carton, especially once there is more air in the carton than milk, so big cartons result in more waste.

I used to buy a pint about every 10 days ..... Since the supermarket price went up to about 95p I've switched to 4 pint plastic bottles which cost £1.65 ...... and now drink a lot more milk on its own instead of juice or squash (otherwise I too only normally use milk for tea). I find a 4 pint bottle (from Tesco) will still be fine up to a week after the "use by" date though. And, obviously, I would soon notice if it had gone off! My fridge temperature may be slightly lower than many though, so this possibly helps.

 

[Bald Rick]

If it had been possible I'd have bought a half cucumber and two tomatoes, which would be more like what I can eat.

I find tomatoes last at least a week past their BB date, and often much longer. The ones I’m about to eat tonight are BB 27/12…

 

[DelayRepay]

Again you a confusing best before and use by. Milk has use by dates.

Not if you shop at Morrisons.

Morrisons scrapping 'use by' dates from milk to help customers reduce waste

Morrisons Blog

www.morrisons-corporate.com

This was published in January 2022 and says Morrisons are replacing the use by dates on milk with best before dates.

From 31 January (2022) Morrisons will scrap ‘Use By’ dates on 90 per cent of its own brand milk - and encourage its customers to use a sniff test - to help to reduce food waste in the home.

Morrisons anticipates the move will stop millions of pints of its own brand milk from being thrown away every year.

‘Use By’ dates will be scrapped from Morrisons own brand British and Scottish milks, Morrisons For Farmers milks and Morrisons organic milks in store - supplied into Morrisons by Arla farmers. Morrisons South West milk and The Best Jersey milk are yet to be converted.

Morrisons will instead encourage its customers to use a simple sniff test to check if their milk is still good to consume. The milk packaging will show ‘Best Before’ dates to indicate to customers when they should drink it by - to get the best taste. Unlike some other fresh products, drinking milk after a ‘Best Before’ date is not a food safety issue.

 

[Hadders]

Highly perishable products have Use By dates. Examples are cooked meats, fresh meat, fresh fish, pies, salad packs, sandwiches. It is illegal for a shop to sell food past its Use By date. Food shouldn't be consumed past its Use By date as it is potentially a risk to health. Natrually manufacters of highly perishable products must ensure that the product will still be fit for consumption up to 23:59 on the day of expiry. In reality this means an item will normally be ok for a time afterwards (but this cannot be guaranteed and is not at all encouraged by the food industry).

Best Before dates are used on other types of food (there are a few exceptions such as salt, single ice cream and chewing gum which do not require Best Before dates). Fresh food will have a specific Best Before date, ambient products are usually marked Best Before End of a particular month. Consuming an item past its Best Before date is not a risk to health although the quality of the product might have suffered. Many retailers have recently started to use Best Before rather than Use By dates on fresh milk.

Sell By dates have not been a thing for around 25 years. These were previously used to indicate to a shop when an item should be removed from sale. They caused confusion for customers because Sell By dates had a margin built in so that a customer would have a few days to use a product after the Sell By date. The problem was many customers thought Sell By meant Use by.

Display Until is sometimes used in conjunction with Best Before to indicate to a shop when a product should be removed from sale. There will normally be a couple of days between Display Until and Use By so that the customer has a period of time to consume the product. Display Until is used on products like cut flowers to indicate when they should be removed from sale - many retailers have a guarantee that flowers will remain fresh for 7 days after purchase so the Display Until date has to take this into consideration.

Use By dates are not required on fresh fruit and veg. Instead fruit and veg must meet specific marketing standards (basically Class I or Class II). Best Before dates can be used to help meet these standards but there is no legal obligation to do so. Many retailers have decided to remove Best Before dates to reduce food waste.

 

[cb a1]

A good fridge does help. Just had a baked potato with cheese and coleslaw. The coleslaw had a Use By date of 29 December. It tasted fine. [If I'm throwing up later, I'll be back saying I've changed my mind about Use By dates ]
What surprised me, after reading this thread, was Morrisons Wild Rocket has a Use By date on it rather than Best Before or no date at all? I get the principle of Use By dates on many things (including coleslaw) but am somewhat bemused by what happens to Rocket when it goes off. In my experience it just goes slimy which is unappetising enough.

 

[najaB]

What surprised me, after reading this thread, was Morrisons Wild Rocket has a Use By date on it rather than Best Before or no date at all?

I guess maybe something to do with the e. coli breakout a few years back?

 

[Siemens Trains]

Wild Rocket has a Use By date on it rather than Best Before or no date at all? I get the principle of Use By dates on many things (including coleslaw) but am somewhat bemused by what happens to Rocket when it goes off. In my experience it just goes slimy which is unappetising enough.

I've often wondered that too. Salad that's meticulously packed in some kind of 'protective atmosphere' seems almost classed as hazardous if you leave it for too long, suggested by applying the more sinister Use By advice. The instructions probably recommend washing before use too.
Meanwhile similar items left to fester in the greengrocer's back room, sampled by their pet dog etc, an be left for an arbitrary period without even a Best Before recommendation.
Maybe it's precisely because of the packaging technique, and a concern that it could allow germs to be trapped inside. Just a thought, based on no scientific knowledge whatsoever.

 

[DelW]

A good fridge does help. Just had a baked potato with cheese and coleslaw. The coleslaw had a Use By date of 29 December. It tasted fine. [If I'm throwing up later, I'll be back saying I've changed my mind about Use By dates ]

I suspect you'd taste something odd before it became harmful. I can remember throwing away what was left in the bottom of a tub (well past whichever date it showed) when the mayonnaise sauce had a sort of fizzy sensation on the tongue (as when drinking a fizzy drink). I'm usually quite gung ho about such things, but it was enough to put me off.

 

[Hadders]

Morrisons Wild Rocket has a Use By date on it rather than Best Before or no date at all? I get the principle of Use By dates on many things (including coleslaw) but am somewhat bemused by what happens to Rocket when it goes off. In my experience it just goes slimy which is unappetising enough.

A salad pack is considered highly perishable and therefore requires a use by date.

 

[cb a1]

A salad pack is considered highly perishable and therefore requires a use by date.

I was under the impression that Use By dates were for things that when they went off were 'potentially dangerous to eat' - i.e. could make you very sick.

My experience with salad is that it is undesirable to eat, but not necessarily potentially dangerous to eat unless it's to do with the earlier comment about e-coli (or I'm misunderstood the difference between Use By and Best Before)??

As an aside, no negative effects from the coleslaw .

 

[Hadders]

A salad pack is processed food in that the products are different to how they came out of the ground. This increases the risk of things like listeria, salmonella etc which is why they have to be kept refrigerated and why they carry use by dates.

 

[Ediswan]

Deleted.

 

[johnnychips]

I worry about this forum sometimes. 103 posts, and nobody has questioned why dates are no longer classified as fruit or veg by supermarkets

Edit - no doubt someone will tell me somebody did in post 64 or so!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I worry about this forum sometimes. 103 posts, and nobody has questioned why dates are no longer classified as fruit or veg by supermarkets

Edit - no doubt someone will tell me somebody did in post 64 or so!

Post 33, actually...

 

[johnnychips]

Post 33, actually...

View attachment 126616

Damn, my skim reading isn’t what it used to be! Thanks, Peter!

 

[david1212]

In Aldi the packs of the same apples with codes 0304 and 0401. Any thoughts on which is fresher or more specifically if instead of the code the actual date was printed which would be further ahead ?

 

[Ediswan]

The Co-op system may be really simple. Today, those products without actual dates have codes such as 'A 17' or 'A 19'.

 

[AM9]

Trouble is many types of fruit and veg sit in warehouses in cold storage before reaching the shelves so you’ve really no idea how fresh the product is.

That's equally true whether the product has a 'Best Before' date or not.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

That's equally true whether the product has a 'Best Before' date or not.

Is it? One would hope that, even if the customer doesn't know how long the food has sat in cold storage, the supermarket would know, and would therefore be able to take that into account when deciding on the appropriate 'best before' date.

 

[AM9]

Is it? One would hope that, even if the customer doesn't know how long the food has sat in cold storage, the supermarket would know, and would therefore be able to take that into account when deciding on the appropriate 'best before' date.

As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, even though some perishable products no longer carry 'Best Before' dates tha can be easily read by the customers, they still have codes on them that allows the stores system to ensure that the goods are fit to be sold. Their reputation would suffer greatly otherwise. My statement in post #109 was made in recognition of that.

 

[GusB]

I honestly don't see the point of stupid codes like A17 or L26 if they represent actual dates. All that's happening here is that one system that everyone knows and understands is being replaced by one that's obscure.

It depresses me somewhat that customers aren't savvy enough to be able to decide when an item on the shelf isn't going to last too long after they take it home. It depresses me even more that the supermarkets don't train their staff sufficiently well these days to allow them to make decisions about when it's time to remove something from sale or not.

When I worked in supermarkets the produce teams took pride in knowing their products and they were able to make their own decisions about when something should be removed from sale. Unfortunately, the drive towards multi-skilling of staff has done away with the specialist knowledge.

 

[class68fan]

A salad pack is processed food in that the products are different to how they came out of the ground. This increases the risk of things like listeria, salmonella etc which is why they have to be kept refrigerated and why they carry use by dates.

Either read or seen on TV that risk of food poisioning from pre-packaged is worse than with using a hole lettuce or cucumber. more with shred leaves.

 

[DelW]

I bought two tubs of extra-thick cream from Sainsbury's yesterday, reduced to 1p each as their "best before" (not "use by") date is today. I'll be surprised if I don't manage to use up both of them before they go off (though at that price it won't matter if I do have to ditch some ).

Well, I finished the second tub of cream today, 11 days past its "best before" date but not detectably different in taste or texture from when the first one was opened ... possibly my best value food purchase in years at 2p for 500ml! Unfortunately it probably hasn't had a beneficial effect on my post-Christmas waistline