In scrapping best-before dates on 500 fresh products, Waitrose has seen sense and will help reduce food waste; they should be saluted, but what will ‘went-off-at-birth’ Waitrose-hater Owen Jones have to say?
Whilst most people sensibly lauded Waitrose for announcing they will be scrapping the inclusion of best-before dates on some 500 fresh food products from September, the public still await a reaction from the supermarket’s number one hater, the eternally ‘angry man’ Owen Jones.
Of the move, Marija Rompani, director of sustainability and ethics at John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, this morning announced:
“Best-before dates are designed to show food quality rather than how safe it is to eat.”
“By removing best before dates from our products, we want our customers to use their own judgment to decide whether a product is good to eat or not, which in turn will increase its chances of being eaten and not becoming waste.”
“By using up existing fresh food in our homes, we can also save on our weekly household food shop, which is becoming an increasingly pressing concern for many.”
“UK households throw away 4.5 million tonnes of edible food every year, meaning that all the energy and resources used in food production is wasted.”
Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) added:
“Best before dates on fruit and veg are unnecessary and create food waste because they get in the way of people using their judgement when food is still good to eat.”
“We are absolutely delighted by this move… which will help stop good food ending up in the bin.”
“We estimate that removing dates on fresh fruit and veg could save the equivalent of seven million shopping baskets of food from the bin, which is huge.”
Rivals Tesco removed best-before dates on 100 fresh products in 2018 whilst Marks & Spencer did the same on 300 products in their range in July this year.
Now, today, we join those calling on Apple watch wearing hypocrite Owen Jones to do the decent thing; it’s time for him to come out and celebrate the wisdom of the wonderful and anything-but-wasteful Waitrose.
Pictured top – It’s ‘bye bye’ to irrational dates that just encourage people to bin perfectly good food from September at Britain’s smartest supermarket (left) whilst the eternally bitter Corbynite creep Jones (right) – a mouse-not-a-man who undoubtedly “went off” at birth – has yet to comment on this piece of extremely positive news.
Reactions to the brilliant best-before decision on Twitter
I have been saying this for years, it was the biggest con to induce people to buy more. It used to drive me mad when my kids would throw good food in the bin, just because it had gone past the, best before date. Even food that has a, use before date, should be checked to see if it’s still edible. Milk is a prefect example, quite often milk will have gone past it’s, Use by date, but is still perfectly fine.
Yes. The food wasted in the Western World is horrifying . Persons old enough to shop should be able to assess the age of produce and be able to make soup with a slightly limp carrot.
After trying the sieve pepper and spaghetti technique.
It’s rather nice 👍
Now away and fvck yourself