As around 10 million tons of food every year are being discarded in the UK alone, campaign for changing the wording on food expiry labels is up for a major manufacturer, Unilever. It was estimated that 53% of Europeans do not know the difference between “best before” and “use by”, which leads to households throwing away tons of edible food every year.
Unilever, which owned PG Tips, created a better awareness of what food labels mean, as part of its battle to reduce food waste. Their campaign suggested to reword the expiry labels, with “best before” followed by “often good after”.
It has been said that the new label will be introduced in stages to avoid wasting of packaging starting with a new range of rice noodle pots launched this autumn in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.