UK Legislates to Reduce Food Waste: The End of the Sell By Date
By cmdweb
- Reducing Food Waste - Green Budget Living
Practical ideas and tips on how to reduce food waste and save money at home. - WRAP - Working together for a world without waste - WRAP
WRAP's mission is to accelerate resource efficiency by creating stable and efficient markets for recycled materials and products, while removing barriers to waste minimisation, re-use and recycling. WRAP works with the public, private, and community - Guidance on the application of date labels to food Defra publications
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
In September 2011, the UK government passed legislation outlawing confusing expiration dates on food packaging in a bid to reduce the amount of food waste produced.
The legislation finally bans the use of the confusing 'sell by' and 'display until' dates in favour of the more practical 'use by' and 'best before' dates that many producers have been using for some time. The government deemed 'sell by' and 'display until' dates to be confusing to many shoppers, leading to food being thrown away or wasted while still being useable.
The legislation is backed up by DEFRA guidelines intended to help food manufacturers determine which expiration date label is most appropriate for their produce. Items including meat, fish and soft cheeses will bear a 'use by' date, where less perishable goods like dried or tinned goods will likely get a 'best before' estimate of their lifespan.
The action came after the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) reported that over 5.3 million tonnes of food which could be used, are wasted every year in the UK. Not only is this amount of waste an intolerable environmental burden, but the cost to individual British families is proving hard to bear in hard-pressed financial times.
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