Calls for EU to remove ‘best before’ dates from certain foods

The governments of Sweden and the Netherlands have written to delegations from the European Union (EU) to ask them to consider supporting moves to remove ‘best before’ dates from certain food stuff packaging, citing their belief that they play a role in food wastage.

The Council of the European Union issued a letter to the EU delegations on behalf of the Netherlands and Sweden earlier this month, which calls for the European Commission to exempt items that ‘do not need’ a best-before warning.

According to the letter, backed by the governments of Austria, Denmark, Germany and Luxembourg, consumers throw out huge amounts of food for ‘no good reason’ due to confusion about the best-before date (which specifies the last date a product can be eaten ‘at its best’) or misplaced concerns over food safety. According to the Food Standards Agency, best before labels 'are more about quality than safety'.

Dutch Minister for Agriculture Sharon Dijksma and her Swedish counterpart, Eskil Erlandsson, advocated adapting European legislation regarding best-before dates, such as by removing best before dates from pasta, rice and coffee packaging, which they say ’cannot really expire’.

The letter also called on the European Commission to undertake more research into regulatory barriers, which was a topic of discussion at an agriculture council meeting yesterday (19 May).

It reads: ‘In many European countries date labelling is causing unnecessary food waste. Without overturning the system as such, the Netherlands and Sweden think that some changes and actions can be taken to reduce the amount of food waste caused by the labelling system.’

Minister Dijksma said: “I support a common European approach to guarantee the safety of our food, but these regulations must not contribute to food waste. People are now throwing away perfectly good food because they are confused about exactly what the best-before date on the packaging means. That costs money, as people have to go out and buy new products, and at the same time needlessly depletes our natural resources.

“For products with a very long shelf life, such as pasta and rice, it would be better to leave off the best-before date altogether, rather than providing a date that has no meaning at all.”

The European Commission has set up a working group to discuss food waste at EU level and is set to release legislative proposals in mid June.

Food wastage in the EU

The calls to remove certain best before labels come just a month after the House of Lords EU committee called for ‘urgent action’ on food wastage across Europe.

According to EU figures cited by the committee, ‘at least 90 million tonnes’ of food is wasted across the EU each year, a figure that could rise to approximately 126 million tonnes by 2020 if ‘no action is taken’.

The committee adds that the carbon footprint of worldwide food waste is equivalent to ‘twice the global greenhouse gas emission of all road transportation in the USA’, and that it represents a financial, as well as environmental, ‘loss of resources’. (Looking to the UK, the report highlights that 15 million tonnes of food is wasted every year, equating to a financial loss to business of ‘at least £5 billion’ per year.)

According to the committee, food waste arisings are being triggered by a range of factors, including: a lack of common understanding of the definition of food waste; ‘fragmented and untargeted’ efforts to reduce food waste; and retailer promotions that can lead to food waste.

Read more about the problems of food waste or the House of Lords’s ‘Counting the Cost of Food Waste: EU Food Waste Prevention’ report.