Item in Daily Mail about changes to be proposed -

Misleading food labelling on sell-by-dates to be scrapped to stop food waste

The sell-by and best-before dates on almost all fresh produce and thousands of other food items are to be scrapped to prevent waste.

Thousands of tons of perfectly good food is binned annually because critics claim the labelling system is misleading.

Ministers say products should only have a 'use-before' date because it is the only way of giving consumers a safety cut-off point.

. . . article continues

Well I don't see what is misleading about the use by / best before dates they have now, if only people actually knew what they meant. Seems to me they'd be better off doing a publicity campaign to educate consumers. Perhaps make it a legal requirement for food retailers to have a notice on their walls explaining the guidelines.

There was a caller to a phone-in this morning who said that her children would go through the fridge and put anything which was beyong its best before date in the bin. She's even found cans in the bin. They'd have got a click round the ear if they were my kids. Maybe they should even teach it in school.

I don't think they've given this new suggestion much thought. It is just too simple.

Any thoughts?

I think the problem is more to do with people habitually buying far more than they've a realistic chance of getting through in the first place. But I suppose such proposals as those above will keep some consultative body or other in ludicrously overpaid jobs.

I think it's a good idea, some people throw away anything that is past a 'best before' when a bit of common sense will tell you whether it's ok.

I don't mess around with meat but most other things I am fine with - as you say common sense should dictate!!

People freely admit to throwing away stuff after it's Best Before date even on this site. You get the feeling that no matter what you tell them they'll still chuck it cause that date is there.

Best thing is to just get rid of the best before date imo.

I'm not sure you can completely get rid of it, then some nob will eat something that is 5 years old and sue the manufacturer!

Not if there's still a use by date, it's the 'best before' that seems to confuse people.

The best before date is just an indication of quality but if by your example someone will wait a few years to eat something and notice it's not quite as tasty as it would have been a few years ago then fair enough put some sort of obvious label that shows it's still safe after the best before date and have the use by date big use by date.

We do have to clear this up for many people, my mother is always worried about the sell by date and that has nothing to do with us consumers.

Plus a lot of the meat we buy has a use by date but also says you can freeze it on the day of purchase for like a month or more but some people see you using meat that's passed it's use by date and freak out.

I'm sure the whole thing could be cleared up.

Meat especially still needs a best before date but alot of other things it doesn't really matter.

Take bread for example. Some bread lasts fine until the use by date and others i fins as soon as i've opened the seal on the pack 36 hours later and its going mouldy. Also there needs to be alot more suggestions on packing for how to make foods last longer.

There could though be an alternative to the word use by or best before date and change it to date produced/packed and then to give you the recomendations for how long to keep food in various conditions before it should be got rid of. Is the lamb chops i buy in tesco use buy 2 days time cos they've already been frozen for three months and that is when they wer got out of the freezer and it says to use with in 48 hours or is it in fact that they were just done fresh and that is why they are dated then. How can you tell. It would be good to know if i'm going to buy something take it home and freeze it when its already been frozen and defrosted once by the shop.

If people weren't generally idiots this wouldn't be a problem. I mean really, if it says 'use by' then thats fairly obvious, 'best before' again fairly obvious, 'sell by' normally has a 'use by' right next to it, a few days after, so it's again completely obvious to anyone above the intelligence level of a toddler whether the food is okay to eat or not.