Marks & Spencer ditches best before dates on fruit & veg

Marks & Spencer is removing best before dates from fruit & veg in efforts to tackle food waste.

The retailer is removing best before dates from the labels of over 300 fresh produce items and replacing them with a code system.

The code is a mixture of numbers and letters that helps store staff ensure freshness and quality is maintained.

The move was implemented as a way to help reduce household food waste as it encouraged shoppers to “use their judgement”.

“We’re 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,” said director of food technology Andrew Clappen.

“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 change, which applies to the majority of M&S’s produce offering such as apples, potatoes and broccoli, is rolling out across all M&S UK stores from this week.

For the time being, M&S has confirmed it does not yet have plans to roll out any in-store signage to help customers with the transition.

The new initiative is part of the grocer’s sustainability strategy, Plan A, in which M&S has pledged to halve food waste by 2030.

It has also committed to redistributing 100% of edible surplus food by 2025, mainly via its partnership with charity network Neighbourly.

“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,” Clappen added.

Wrap’s director of collaboration and change, Catherine David, said removing dates on fresh fruit & veg could save the equivalent of seven million shopping baskets of food being binned in UK households.

“We’re thrilled to see this move from M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis.

“We urge more supermarkets to get ahead on food waste by axing date labels from fresh produce, allowing people to use their own judgement.”

Other supermarkets have been putting forward similar measures to ensure edible food and drink products don’t go to waste – earlier this year, Morrisons scrapped use by dates on its own-brand milk in favour of the “sniff test”.