The new initiative in the UK to reduce the amount of food waste going to landfill sites attracted a lot of news airtime on June 9th, this month.
UK Environment Secretary Hillary Benn’s idea to scrap the best before dates on food labelling came in for some scrutiny. The story even knocked all the recent political ruckus off the top of the news.
Channel 4 News began their coverage with a long zoom in on some very fresh looking chestnut mushrooms packed and nestling on the shelves of a London Waitrose store.
The labelling had the ubiquitous BEST BEFORE date highly visible on the front of the packaging. The question of whether one can get rid of all dates on packaging is contentious as the Use By date is seen as a food safety guideline, while the best before is seen as a food quality guideline.
Would suppliers want to have only a use by date on their produce?
The small plug for the mushrooms in the news item was a bonus - it reminds folk in this good weather that mushrooms are there for salads, barbecues and the like.
Summer is usually quite a buoyant time for the mushroom market.
