As far as I understand it, if a food producer is packaging something, they are legally obliged to label it in line with food safety legislation - this usually involves putting on either a best before date or a use by date on packaged foods. I’d be very surprised if all dates are removed from dairy and meat products.
It sounds like M&S are just removing dates from fruit & veg, which is fair enough…
Uncut fruit and veg don’t need a date stamp - they don’t need a date stamp if you buy them loose, so I’m fine with removing dates from packages - I try to buy mine loose if I can, anyway.
Milk and dairy - I’d want some idea of how old it was or what its remaining shelf life was before I bought it - a Best Before date is fine, which is what Morrisons put on their own brand dairy produce.
I used to ignore the “use by” date anyway in favour of the “look and sniff” test.
I’m not sure about the rules for meat because I hardly ever buy it, except occasionally from the Butcher if I have visitors.
I’m guessing they’ll still show best before dates and some higher risk products will still show “use by” dates.
Just looked in my fridge and have grapes and mushrooms from Iceland and they don’t put best before or use by dates on theirs. They have ‘display until’ dates and I always find both their grapes and mushrooms last well over a week even two or three for the grapes than the date on the packaging.
I have a bag of co-op carrots I bought yesterday that have a use by date of 22nd July on them and I know from past experience will be ok well after that date.
Milk I get from either Iceland, Tesco, M&S or the co-op they all have use by dates on them, but I have on several occasions gone past the use by dates. But I wouldn’t buy a milk unless it had a lengthy use by date on it.
I think all supermarkets have been gradually moving away from date stamps on packs of fruit and veg - I think M&S are probably trailing behind the major supermarkets on this - M&S always have been the worst offenders for over-packaging, in my opinion, so it’s good if they are finally getting round to following the advice to retailers on packaging and labelling fruit & veg that was issued 6 months ago.
I hate milk but like a small amount in a cup of tea,so just buy the smallest bottles &, if it is getting close to the use by date I use it to make a cheese or mushroom sauce.
I heard a report a few weeks ago about the milk marketing board complaining that the use by date is too short & supermarkets who put the date on the bottles are causing too much to be thrown away.
As I use so little I keep my eye on the date, but have found that even if you always keep it in the fridge you can rarely use it after the use by date.
I suspect that Marks & Spencer are trying to cut their losses , because their food is nothing like as good as it was back in the 70s/80s & they have been struggling to sell clothes as well as they used to.
No, me neither. Or I freeze it that day (having checked first with the butcher that it’s safe to freeze). But the legal requirements to have use by dates on certain products only apply to packaged goods. (Well, at least, I think this is a legal requirement - feeling too lethargic to bother doing the research )
Ah, but not if they are sealed packages Wendeey, can’t sniff 'em then.
I was buying a box of red grapes last week in M&S and couldn’t understand the date stamp.
I called an assistant over and asked her what it meant.
She told me it was for ‘Staff’ only to see now!
She said it was because they were getting so much waste before. Presumable what she meant was people were looking at the dates, and choosing the food with the longest date stamp, so things with only a day or so, were left on the shelf.
I summised some pen-pushing office bod who never has to go shopping, thought it looked a good idea on paper!
I agree Mups. I’ve bought grapes from our local green grocers that looked lovely at the time with no dates on them, but a couple of days later were all furry and soggy so had to throw them away.
Well we don’t wat to buy fruit and veg from a shop that is sold loose. We don’t want to buy such things that the great unwashed have picked up and put back having hand`led it with mostly unwashed hands or even worse their all to often snotty nosed kids having done god knows what with it. I want fruit and veg hygienically wrapped, not left to be handled by all and sundry.
Well I suppose it depends on what it is, citrus fruits and apples can be washed, potatoes are cooked.
I remember one shop in particular where the baguettes were displayed in a rack, a fella stood over them and started coughing and spluttering like crazy.
I decided to give the homemade garlic bread a miss.
)