MSE News: Food shake-up could see 'best before' labels changed 18 April 2011 at 4:01PM in Food shopping & groceries 25 replies 3.4K views

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"New guidance on food labelling will be issued by the Government in a bid to cut down on food being unnecessarily wasted ..."

Read the full story:
Food shake-up could see 'best before' labels changed

liam8282

There will always have to be some sort of date on food products, be that a date for use by, sell by, made on....

& while there are dates on products people will always choose the products with the best dates, ie the longest use by or sell by, or the newest made on....

Also as this is only guidance being issued by the government, no doubt each supplier will have their own interpretation of the guidance and the result will be each supplier choosing how they want to show the dates and the consumer being even more confused.

Sukuyan

Without some sort of guidance I think more will be wasted 'just to be on the safe side.'

Derivative

All items should have a use by date, the rest should be common sense IMO.
No need for 'best before' if it simply means a chocolate bar tastes a little more bland.

robbies_gal

its ridiculous-i agree with edgey certain food always should have use by if its like fish but the best before date should go

my sister is obsessed with them and wont touch anything once it hits that date its such a waste

geordie_joe

It's all very well Martin saying "For everything else we should use our eyes and nose" But how do you use your eyes and nose when buying a tin of beans?

Much of the "everything else" is packaged, so we can't see or smell it until we open the package. So how do we know it is "worth" buying?

Do we go round the supermarket, opening stuff to see if it's still OK?

Bazzygirl

I usually love Martin but found this so dissapointing. Why are they quoting from the NHS????!!!! They have no authority or expertise in food safety, in fact my dealings with them have been so poor, they give the public poor advice on food poisoning and rarely report to environmental health which they are legally obliged to do. If this site is going to give advice to the public on these matters then they need to be getting accurate and technical info, otherwise this just creates more problems. I have worked in food warty as an enforcement officer for many years visiting businesses and advising and educating the public. I see both sides of the coin from a consumer point of view and from that of the business. I do not think bb dates should be scrapped at all. I would hope that display until dates are though, the biggest thing is to educate people so they understand, I am shocked on a day to daily basis how poor peoples knowledge is on food safety. I think it would be great for this site to do it but to do it in the correct way!!

Please Martin nsure that info you are giving comes from the people who know what they are talking about!!

DaveF327

Never mind labels.. if supermarkets want to reduce the mountain of waste, quit those "buy 2 get 1 free" offers on huge multipacks that only a family of seven could use up within a week. Just give us the single items at reduced price instead... :mad:

Bazzygirl

geordie_joe wrote: »

It's all very well Martin saying "For everything else we should use our eyes and nose" But how do you use your eyes and nose when buying a tin of beans?

Much of the "everything else" is packaged, so we can't see or smell it until we open the package. So how do we know it is "worth" buying?

Do we go round the supermarket, opening stuff to see if it's still OK?

Lol exactly!! Oh yes I can smell those miniscule bacteria growing through the pack!!

geordie_joe

I like dates, ignore most of them, but still like them.

To me a date on a food item tells the supermarket that if they haven't sold it by that date they are going to have to give the consumer a good incentive to buy it. And so far the only incentive the supermarkets have come up with is reducing the price, often to ridiculously low amounts.

I don't think the problem is with the dates, it's the generation of people we brought up with the government telling them what to do/what not to do all the time. They have been told so much they can't decide things for themselves.

geordie_joe

Bazzygirl wrote: »

I am shocked on a day to daily basis how poor peoples knowledge is on food safety.

I think it's more to do with them ignoring stuff you say because food safety has gone so far over the top.