Almost a third of Brits (29%) have admitted to throwing away food as soon as its past the ‘best before’ date, while a quarter throw away expired items without checking if they are edible, according to new data.
The research from social impact company Too Good To Go was conducted to mark Stop Food Waste Day, taking place on 24 April 2024.
It also found that one in 10 consumers don’t feel confident in explaining the definition of the ‘sell by’ date and 14% are not confident in explaining the ‘display until’ date.
As a result, Brits are wasting 19.4m items every day – or 135.8m a week.
Too Good To Go co-founder Jamie Crummie said: “We are on a mission to fight food waste, and believe that by adapting your habits you make the most out of everything you buy.
“One of the reasons households are a main contributor to food waste is because many of us don’t know the difference between ‘best before’, ‘sell by’, ‘display until’ and ‘use by’. This is causing a whopping 10% of Europe’s food waste – 9,000,000 tonnes across Europe each year.”
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“At Too Good To Go, we are encouraging households to sense-check instead of blindly binning items due to a lapsed date with our ‘Look, Smell, Taste, Don’t Waste’ advice,” continued Crummie.
“It is a simple way for households to reduce food waste, save money and cut down their emissions.”
Younger generations are contributing the most to usable food waste with 16 to 24 year olds admitting to throwing away three items per week on average, compared to over 55s throwing away only one item per week.
Over half of adults over 55 keep food past its ‘best before’ date, compared to just 28% of those aged 16 to 24.
Over the past two years, many of the UK’s leading supermarkets have removed ‘best before’ dates from fresh fruit and vegetable lines in a bid to limit waste.
