The European Union is poised to scrap compulsory 'best before' labels on coffee, rice, dry pasta, hard cheeses, jams and pickles to help reduce the estimated 100 million tons of food wasted across Europe each year.
We have written about the difference between 'best before' and 'use-by' dates in the past, and it's an issue that continues to crop up as the world is waking up to the obscene amount of food that is wasted globally each year.
I mean really obscene, 1.3billion tonnes of edible food obscene! which get's wasted either by feeding it to livestock on farms, being thrown away due to strict ‘use-by’ and ‘best before’ dates, or because it is rejected by supermarkets due to it not fitting strict cosmetic criteria.
With 925 million people or 13.6% of the worlds population officially classed as malnourished, starving or food insecure, food waste has to stop. Plus, it's more than just the food which goes to waste. The water, nutrients, energy and more that go into producing it get wasted too.
Next month, officials of the European Commission will table proposals allowing national governments to extend the list of foods that do not require 'best before' dates, in a move which they believe will reduce food waste by 15 million tons a year.
Best before dates create confusion, and cause many households to discard foods wrongly, worried that it is no longer fit for consumption.
However, the 'best before' date simply indicates that the product may lose some of its quality after this date passes, but is still safe to eat after the date, as long as its not damaged, deteriorated or perished.
Believe it or not, people are smarter than they look, and this is exactly what the European Commission officials believe too. "We think citizens can make sure themselves if, for instance, rice is still usable" said Sharon Dijksma, the Dutch agriculture minister.
Consumers can tell for themselves when food has gone off and that minor changes such as "bit of a change in colour" should not lead to foodstuffs being thrown away, she said.
By ditching best before labels, and the confusion around them, and introducing smarter labelling, this would help consumers to better understand when stable foods need to be thrown away, or not.
EU legislation on labelling currently requires all food to carry a 'best before' date, whether the products are potentially dangerous, such as raw meat or eggs, or have a long shelf life, like frozen, dried and tinned goods.
In Australia, all food that has less than a 2-year shelf life must be marked with a best before date.
Another important factor in stopping food waste is storing your food correctly, and in the right conditions to keep it safe from spoiling early.
Wasting less food means saving money, and cutting pollution and waste. It's really that simple, and I think removing best before dates and introducing smarter labelling could be a great action to take, or we need more widespread teaching about what 'best before' actually means.