Are ‘best before’ dates on fresh produce necessary?

Every year, 88 million tons of food goes to waste in the EU. To tackle the problem, supermarkets are removing best before dates on fresh produce and encouraging customers to use their senses while shopping — literally.

‘Do you think this milk is still ok?’ my colleagues ask one another on Tuesday morning, reverting to the good old, trusty smell test on a past-dated carton before tucking into their morning cuppa.

We’ve all been there — slicing off the brown part of the apple, breaking off the piece of a banana that’s a little too mushy for our tastes. We know that a partial imperfection on a piece of fruit or veg doesn’t mean that eating the rest will send us rushing to A&E.

So why, when we see an otherwise fresh-looking bag of spinach in the supermarket nearing its ‘best before’ date, do we reach to the back to find one going off at the end of the week? We all know we’re not polishing off the bag by Friday, anyway.

Best-before labels were first introduced to customers in the 70s, when concerns over food safety were mounting. These labels have since evolved into a legal requirement for food manufacturers in most parts of the world, and…