Morrisons has become the latest supermarket to scrap date labels and remove ‘display until’ messaging on fruit, vegetable, and salad items.
The supermarket wants customers to use their own judgement as to whether produce is good to eat after being bought and stored at home, as well as aiming to help shoppers reduce waste and save money.
A survey by WRAP shows that UK households waste 4.5 million tonnes of food, costing the average family £720 per year.
Morrisons has already started to remove dates on 200 fresh produce lines ahead of the start of the big Christmas food shop in mid-December. Whilst some items will have their dates removed completely – such as bananas, watermelon, and pineapple – most will be replaced by a code system, which will be used by Morrisons staff to ensure freshness on shelf.
Next year, Morrisons aims to update its packaging for more perishable pre-packed products such as berries, grapes, and stone fruit. The changes will see it move away from ‘display until’ and introduce ‘best before’ labelling to indicate the quality of produce to shoppers.
Damon Johnson, head of technical produce and horticulture at Morrisons, said: “Now more than ever it’s important to help our customers to reduce their food waste. We hope by removing dates from our produce lines, changing our messaging on packs and by providing our customers with advice on storage, we can support households in extending the life of their food and save customers money this Christmas.”
