Waitrose no best before dates ... helping their profits - not me ?

If people actually took note of what was due to expire or needing to be eaten in their fridges and cupboards I've no doubt this would make a dent in the amount of food wasted. Bought, forgotten about or not fitting the bill for today's meals. Ends up binned.

No issue with Waitrose's approach, anything which encourages people to use what little common sense they have to make a judgement is a good thing in my opinion.

I do wonder what impact the current cost of living will have on peoples approach to wasting food and therefore money.
 
BennyC said:
If people actually took note of what was due to expire or needing to be eaten in their fridges and cupboards I've no doubt this would make a dent in the amount of food wasted. Bought, forgotten about or not fitting the bill for today's meals. Ends up binned.

No issue with Waitrose's approach, anything which encourages people to use what little common sense they have to make a judgement is a good thing in my opinion.

I do wonder what impact the current cost of living will have on peoples approach to wasting food and therefore money.
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Plan meals before you go shopping. Look what's in the fridge, freezer and store cupboards. Make a list of what to buy. Only go down aisles you need to go down on. Some people think you have to go down every single aisle. You don't. Why waste time going down the baby aisle when got no babies or pet aisle if you don't own pets?

Have a couple of plan b meal ideas just in case they supermarket doesn't have any certain items on your list.
 
Just common sense needed ,I honestly don't waste any food ,it goes in the ninja if getting towards b grade.
I used to make deserts for waitrose.i would say the ingredients were the best ,Tesco finest very close maybe equal sometimes
 
mansplaining aside ...
if you have vegetables in a plastic bag where you have no indication of how long it has been sitting in the shop , who isn't going to spend more time in selection.


Diddums said:
What the hell goes on in your head?
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mansplainng - adding to your cultural education https://graemeshimmin.com/she-by-h-rider-haggard-book-review/
Ayesha [blackout]tells Leo that they will marry soon. Then he will bathe in the ‘Pillar of Life’, a fire that confers long life, great beauty and incredible powers.

similar to eternal life, lot's of modern black magic for the preservation of life of vegetables gases/temp/radiation (bananas/potatoes/appples ...) ... and meat for that matter, and they (more) quickly degrade when removed from that environment
 
jpaul said:
mansplaining aside ...
if you have vegetables in a plastic bag where you have no indication of how long it has been sitting in the shop , who isn't going to spend more time in selection.



mansplainng - adding to your cultural education https://graemeshimmin.com/she-by-h-rider-haggard-book-review/
Ayesha [blackout]tells Leo that they will marry soon. Then he will bathe in the ‘Pillar of Life’, a fire that confers long life, great beauty and incredible powers.

similar to eternal life, lot's of modern black magic for the preservation of life of vegetables gases/temp/radiation (bananas/potatoes/appples ...) ... and meat for that matter, and they (more) quickly degrade when removed from that environment
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Refers to education, writes a post that looks like it was written by a 5 year old in the middle of a seizure :cry:
 
Scougar said:
I have plenty of stories of 'mother' giving me food from the back of the cupboard that was welllllll past the date. Cans/packets etc. You haven't lived till you get given a flat drink that is 10 years old, or a sauce packet that is so far gone it tastes like vineger. LOL.
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Takes me back to when an ex girlfriend of mine took me to meet her parents and her dad offered me a beer. He produced a can from out of a cupboard and poured it into a glass and gave it to me. Tasted absolutely vile and metallic and absolutely undrinkable, which was a bit awkward. I took a look at the can and not only was it years out of date, but there was actually rust on the bottom! Turned out her dad didn't drink and had no idea how old the can was.
 
jpaul said:
Not into lateral thinking then
... I suppose some of the fresh vegetable purchase could be offset with frozen .. maybe you get that.
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Definitely in to lateral thinking, just not that keen on reading a post that could've been composed by someone hurling a can of alphabet spaghetti at their screen.
 
How did people cope back when their vegetables didn’t come wrapped in plastic? Likewise not all fruit and veg comes wrapped in plastic, particularly if you don’t buy it from a supermarket.

Tesco have been doing this for months and I haven’t noticed and difference to what’s on the shelves. Their best before dates were always extremely conservative anyway.

In reality the dates are still there, you just can’t easily read it and stuff still gets reduced on the same day it always did.
 
jpaul said:
Not into lateral thinking then
... I suppose some of the fresh vegetable purchase could be offset with frozen .. maybe you get that.
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Lateral thinking - sure.

Total and utter nonsense being typed out to sound all high and mighty like some new age Aristotle about vegetables. it's a no from me
 
Mr Badger said:
Takes me back to when an ex girlfriend of mine took me to meet her parents and her dad offered me a beer. He produced a can from out of a cupboard and poured it into a glass and gave it to me. Tasted absolutely vile and metallic and absolutely undrinkable, which was a bit awkward. I took a look at the can and not only was it years out of date, but there was actually rust on the bottom! Turned out her dad didn't drink and had no idea how old the can was.
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I've got some 2 year out of date carling in the fridge if you want to come around for a beer :D

I don't drink and often my fridge is mostly empty so just stuck some cans in there as something to keep it a bit more energy efficient.

I've got water bottles with water in them that must be about 5 years old too, I keep 2x 1litre bottles in the freezer and the same in the fridge then swap them around every morning :D
 
arknor said:
I've got water bottles with water in them that must be about 5 years old too, I keep 2x 1litre bottles in the freezer and the same in the fridge then swap them around every morning :D
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Why?

Isn't the whole point about putting water in the fridge to increase its efficiency is to leave it in there and not remove it? By putting a 'warm'' bottle in the freezer, it has to kick on to move that heat back out again.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Why?

Isn't the whole point about putting water in the fridge to increase its efficiency is to leave it in there and not remove it? By putting a 'warm'' bottle in the freezer, it has to kick on to move that heat back out again.
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I figure my fridge-freezer likely turns on because the fridge loses temp a lot quicker than the freezer does.
Especially considering I probably open the fridge 10 times for every one I open the freezer.

to swap a bottle out seems kinda logical but I could be wrong
 
I think your logic is flawed, the purpose of the bottles is to displace the air and act as a 'cold sink' so when you open the door, less warm air can get in and the what does get in gets quickly taken up by the extra thermal mass of the bottles so the fridge/freezer doesn't come on right away.

Putting warm bottles in the freezer will make it kick on and use a load of electric.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I think your logic is flawed, the purpose of the bottles is to displace the air and act as a 'cold sink' so when you open the door, less warm air can get in and the what does get in gets quickly taken up by the extra thermal mass of the bottles so the fridge/freezer doesn't come on right away.

Putting warm bottles in the freezer will make it kick on and use a load of electric.
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they aren't warm though after 1 day they are still 90% frozen
 
jpaul said:
Not sure this is for consumer benefit, I think the strategy is to just sell more product of questionable/anonymous freshness.

they remove a short term bbf date, which you use when selecting the product on the shelves that gives some indication when your piece of chicken won't be slimey, and replace it with a use by date - if at all.
articles suggest products have both a best before and used by date, not in my experience (least ways glancing in fridge celery/cheese just have a bbf, milk has a use by only)

I'll be shopping elsewhere(not that I shop there much), or, just more likely to return stuff if it doesn't meet freshness I expect.

(This is like the bar-code scanners they provide to be helpful - it's proven that customers who use them have more product engagement - you've spent more time thinking about/handling the product, and buy more.)
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You are probably right.

From the supermarket point of view if the food is edible at time of sale they think there is nothing wrong with that. From their perspective they make same profit on food that about a day left vs same item that has about a week left. They annoyed with having to discount almost out of date food and throwing away out of date food, the campaign is promoting it in the name of less food waste, but it just transfers waste from the supermarkets to individuals.

The food standards agency has stepped in e.g. on a supermarket saying we can just sniff milk to see if its gone off, I wonder if morrisons would be ok with me opening milk on their shelves so I can sniff test it before buying?

I have decided to use a dedicated fresh food supplier at least temporarily to see if things work out better for me. Supermarkets are just lowering the bar with what they doing with dates.

Even worse some supermarkets seem to have issues with how they store food, someone on here observed one supermarket had chicken in a unrefrigerated area in the supermarket, I have observed Tesco e.g. the bread is hard and stale on day of delivery. I seem to have better luck with companies that deliver from warehouse picked items.

The way things are going fresh food will eventually end up been eat on day of purchase only with rest of week being tinned and frozen foods.

arknor said:
if it's a family and who can get through all the veg/fruit in 1-3days no problem them, but the rest of us......
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Yep hits single people the hardest as we usually expect our food to last the best part of a week so we can eat it all.
 
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I hardly throw food out. 99% of the food I throw out are the inedible bits - peel, seeds, egg shells etc. Even on peppers. I use the pepper around the stalk. That weighs a fifth of the pepper with the seeds and pith taken out.
 
chrcoluk said:
the campaign is promoting it in the name of less food waste, but it just transfers waste from the supermarkets to individuals.
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Only if the customer buys something that looks to be fine and then doesn't eat it and throws it out...

The supermarket was being held to a set date, regardless of the state of the product, the customer can still save it from being waste and consume it, even if it's not still at its best.

It would be almost impossible for there not to be less food thrown away.
 
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