Have you ever wondered what happens to a great deal of milk after in goes past its ‘use by’ date?
Well, it gets thrown away! Yes, some 490 million pints* are disposed of each year. Not to mention all the plastic it creates, but that’s for another day.
A great deal of this waste is generated because milk is sold with a ‘use by’ date as opposed to ‘best before’. For some consumers if a product goes a minute passed its ‘use by’ date its perceived as no longer any use and must be disposed of. It is estimated the 85 million pints* of milk waste may be due to customers following ‘use by’ labels despite research showing it can be used after the date.
Supermarket Morrisons is to scrap ‘use by’ dates on most of its milk and instead place ‘best before’ on 90% of its own brand milk and encourage customers to use a sniff test to check quality. Morrisons say “good quality well-kept milk has a good few days life after normal ‘use by’ dates and we think it should be consumed and not tipped down the sink”.
I think this is great move by Morrisons and feel sure they won’t be the last main supermarket to implement such an initiative.
* Source: WRAP
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