Tesco to scrap use by dates on 30 products to cut down on food waste

Customers will be encouraged to ‘use their own judgement’ to decide if food is edible

Tesco is set to scrap ‘use by’ dates from 30 of its yogurt products (Getty Images)

Tesco is planning to remove the use-by dates on 30 of its dairy products in a bid to cut down on food wastage.

The use-by date will be replaced by a best-before date on products such as Tesco’s own Greek Style Yoghurt, Creamfields Greek Style Yoghurt, Creamfields Berry Medley Low Fat Yoghurt and Finest Lemon Curd Yoghurt.

Tesco said that the move will “prevent perfectly edible food from being thrown away” by encouraging customers to “use their own judgment on whether to eat a product”.

It comes as recent data from a survey by food waste prevention group Wrap revealed that 54,000 tonnes of yoghurt are wasted a year by UK shoppers.

In January this year, Asda also changed its packaging to omit the use-by date on 28 lines of yoghurt, while The Co-operative and Sainsbury’s changed their packaging in this way last year.

Back in 2018, Tesco removed the use-by dates from fruits and vegetables to prevent food waste.

The distinction between use-by and best-before dates is that the former indicates the point until which a food item is safe to eat, while the latter represents food quality.

Use-by dates must be declared on food products which, from a microbiological point of view, are highly perishable and are therefore likely after a short period to constitute an immediate danger to human health,” the Food and Drink Federation states.

Best-before dates, on the other hand, tell the consumer the date up to which a food item is “expected to retain its specific properties, after which it will not be in optimal condition”.

Tesco is set to scrap ‘use by’ dates from 30 of its yoghurt products (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Amy Walker, Tesco’s lead technical manager for dairy, said that the decision to remove the use-by date on yoghurt packaging was made after “extensive testing” which shows that yoghurt’s acidity acts as a “natural preservative”.

“However, consumers should always use their judgement to determine if the quality is acceptable,” she added in comments to The Mirror.

Wrap said it welcomed Tesco’s efforts to reduce food wastage in homes.

Director Catherine David told The Grocer: “Wasting food feeds climate change and costs us money – with the average family spending £700 a year on good food which ends up in the bin.”

She added that scrapping the use-by dates on yoghurt packaging “gives people longer to use what they buy”.