EU May Ditch ‘Best Before’ Labels to Help Tackle Food Waste

20 May 2014 ---The European Union may ditch compulsory ‘best before’ labels on certain products to help reduce food waste. Currently the products, which include coffee, rice, dry pasta, hard cheeses and pickles, contribute to the 100 million tonnes of food thrown away throughout Europe each year. Other kitchen cupboard staples such as tinned goods and olive oil may also fall under the new rulings.

Next month officials of the European Commission will discuss proposals to allow different governments to extend the list of foods that do not require best-before dates. 

The move was triggered by ministers from the Netherlands and Sweden, who claimed the current labelling was confusing. In a letter backed by Austria, Denmark, Germany and Luxembourg, they asked the European Commission to exempt items that do not need a best-before warning. 

The letter stated: “Consumers often throw food away unnecessarily because of confusion about the meaning of the ‘best before’ date. Products usually remain edible beyond this date, but are nonetheless thrown away.” 

The proposals are also reported to have been triggered by Dutch agriculture minister Sharon Dijksma, who called for the EU to put more focus on ‘best before’ dates, in order to tackle the problem of food waste.

“We would like to start with products you have in your home for a long time, such as pasta, rice or coffee,” she told a meeting of EU farm ministers and officials in Brussels. “We think citizens can make sure themselves if, for instance, rice is still usable.” She noted that around 15% of food waste is caused by expiry dates on packaging.

At present the UK Government has not backed the proposals. A spokesman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: “We are fully engaged with discussions on ‘best before’ dates and are open to the possibility of exempting some foods from the mandatory requirement of giving a best before date, such as foods with a high acid content.

“However, we believe the connection between these labels and food waste requires further investigation to ensure the removal of date marks doesn’t have the opposite effect to that intended.”

In Britain, other factors have also been blamed in the past for the high levels of food waste across Europe, including supermarket offers such as buy one, get one free (BOGOF), which have been criticized for tempting shoppers into buying more than they need. 

Britain’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) supports the current system, although both the FSA and the National Health Service (NHS) make it clear on their websites that these dates are about quality and not safety. “When the date is passed, it doesn’t mean that the food will be harmful, but it might begin to lose its flavour and texture,” they state. 

In Britain, foods that go off quickly such as fish, meat products and ready-prepared salads, carry ‘use by’ dates. “Don’t use any food or drink after the end of the ‘use by’ date on the label, even if it looks and smells fine,” the FSA stated. “This is because using it after this date could put your health at risk.”

Current EU legislation requires all food to carry a best-before date, whether the products have a long shelf-life or not. 
Earlier this year vinegar became one of the first widely-used foods to become exempt from the EU’s best-before legislation.