M&S is set to make a major change to hundreds of its fresh produce as it plans to tackle food waste.
The British high-street giant has confirmed it will be removing the "best before" dates from more than 300 products in store - and they have urged other supermarkets to follow its lead.
Best before dates will now be replaced with a code which M&S store staff will use to ensure freshness and quality is maintained, reports The Manchester Evening News.
The new change is set to be rolled out in stores next week and it will include some of the most commonly wasted products - such as apples, broccoli and potatoes - which make up 85% of M&S' fresh produce.
Andrew Clappen, director of food technology at M&S, said: “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.
"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 new initiative makes up part of M&S' Plan A sustainability Road Map, where they have pledged to reduce 50% off their food waste by 2030.
The retailer has also taken other steps to reduce their food waste, including creating frozen garlic bread from unused bakery products.
Other retailers have made similar decisions in recent years, with Tesco scrapping best-before dates on more than 100 fruit and vegetable products in 2018. I
n January this year, Morrisons announced its plan to remove “use by” dates from 90 per cent of its own brand milk and encouraged customers to use a “sniff test” instead before throwing products away.
Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap), said: “We’re thrilled to see this move from M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis. Removing dates on fresh fruit and veg can save the equivalent of seven million shopping baskets of food being binned in our homes."
She added: “We urge more supermarkets to get ahead on food waste by axing date labels from fresh produce, allowing people to use their own judgment.”
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