Aldi has announced that it will be removing ‘Use By’ dates from its fresh milk to help cut food waste.
Instead, the discounter will adopt ‘Best Before’ dates on milk bottles – except for filtered milk – across its stores in England and Wales to prevent milk from being thrown away unnecessarily. The changes will start rolling out in stores by the end of the year.
According to waste reduction charity WRAP, nearly 300,000 tonnes of milk is wasted by households in the UK each year, with half stating that the reason for pouring it away is due to it not being consumed by the Use By date.
As milk can be safe to use past its Best Before date, Aldi will encourage shoppers to perform a ‘sniff test’ to determine whether their milk is still acceptable to consume.
Liz Fox, Sustainability Director at Aldi UK, commented: “We are constantly working to be a more sustainable retailer and we are dedicated to preventing food waste wherever we can, both in our stores and helping customers throw away less food at home.
“We hope shoppers embrace this change and look, smell, and taste their milk to see if it’s still fine to use, so together we can reduce the effect food waste has on the environment.”
The removal of Use By Dates is the latest move in Aldi’s efforts to cut its food waste, as it works towards its goal of halving this by 2030. The retailer has already removed Best Before dates from around 60 fresh fruit and vegetable lines, and recently rolled out its partnership with food surplus app Too Good To Go nationwide.
NAM Implications:
- The sniff test has worked for centuries…
- …across all food and drink categories,
- Meaning we have ‘nothing to fear but fear itself’…
