A report reveals that more than 50% of Scots throw away food that is #PerfectlyGood because it is approaching or on its best-before date.
More than 50% of people across Scotland throw away food that is approaching or past its best-before-date despite it being perfectly safe to eat, with 62% citing ‘getting ill’ as the primary concern – according to recent research carried out by Approved Food.
The findings also shows that whilst 52.7% of participants in Edinburgh responded to say that they would not throw away such produce a staggering 61% of Glaswegians said that they would! Both figures are higher than the UK average, with just 42.4% of people of people surveyed in total saying they would discard of items ‘sometimes’ or ‘all the time’.
Today, Approved Food founder and food waste reduction campaigner Dan Cluderay said such ‘needless waste’ was the result of confusion between what was safe and what was not – with 11.5% of the nation also mistakenly believing that use-by-dates were indicative of quality, not safety.
The company released the figures after the Scottish Government announced plans to reduce food waste by 33% by 2025.
Dan Cluderay said: “There is a lot of misunderstanding around food labelling and it can be confusing. People are puzzled by what ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ actually mean so it is little wonder that families are throwing away perfectly good food when they don’t need to.
“It’s vital to make sure people understand food dates and labelling and we want to make sure people are thinking before they throw food away. But until something is done to tackle this confusion we simply don’t see that the ambitious targets laid out by the Scottish Government are achievable.
“That’s why we are investing everything we’ve got in our new #PerfectlyGood campaign in a bid to raise awareness of the difference between best-before and use-by-dates in a bid to reduce waste and save the UK £50m.”
Approved Food, founded in 2008, is the largest online-only retailer of short-dated and residual stock food and drinks – working with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide an alternative route to market for stock that would otherwise end up in landfill – to date a staggering 32million items.
http://www.approvedfood.co.uk/perfectlygood
