Brits throw away more than 720 million eggs a year because of an over-reliance on best before dates, according to a food waste campaign group.
Too Good To Go say £139 million worth of eggs is being wasted, with one in three consumers relying on the dates without testing the product.
The group says rather than binning them, it is better to test the egg’s freshness by putting it into a bowl of water.
A spokeswoman added: “If eggs sink to the bottom and lay flat on their sides, they're very fresh.
“If they're less fresh but still good to eat, they'll stand on one end at the bottom of the bowl.
“If they float to the surface, they're no longer fresh enough to eat.”
Too Good To Go’s research found that less than a quarter of Brits were familiar with the test.
EU legislation states that the maximum best before date on eggs must be four weeks from when they were laid.
But the Food Standards Agency have said that eggs can be safely eaten up to two days past the best before date.
Jamie Crummie, co-founder of Too Good To Go, said: “If you've been throwing your eggs in the bin based on the dates on the box, you've probably been wasting perfectly good food.”
The group estimates that 10.2 million tonnes of edible food is binned each year in the UK, worth around £20 billion.
