Sainsbury’s switches to best-before date on milk
Sainsbury’s will be swapping use-by dates for best-before dates on its own-brand milk range from the start of next year.
The move means that the supermarket will be encouraging shoppers to follow the Food Standards Agency’s guidance, which recommends using sensory cues such as sniffing to see if milk with a best before date label has gone bad.
Sainsbury’s said the change will be applied to a total of 44 products, including all fresh and organic milk sold across England, Scotland and Wales.
Research from WRAP has shown that milk is the third most wasted food in the UK, with over 490 million pints thrown away each year. Sainsbury’s switch to best-before dates aims to prevent customers from pouring away pints that are still safe to consume.
The rollout of the new labelling is expected to complete by the end of February 2024.
Ruth Cranston, director of corporate responsibility and sustainability at Sainsbury’s, said: “Combatting food waste is one of our top priorities and we are continuously innovating to tackle this issue, all the way from farms and suppliers, right to our customers’ homes.
“By switching to best-before dates on our milk we are empowering customers to make their own decisions on whether their food is good to eat, helping to prevent them from disposing of food too early.”
Last month, Sainsbury’s completed the roll out of its new milk caps, meaning that all own-brand skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole milk is now sold with a clear cap to improve the recyclability of the plastic.
