Aldi is removing ‘Use By’ dates from its fresh milk to help reduce food waste.
Britain’s fourth-largest supermarket will instead begin using ‘Best Before’ dates on milk bottles – except for filtered milk – across its stores in England and Wales to prevent milk from being thrown away unnecessarily. The changes will start rolling out in stores by the end of the year.
According to waste reduction charity WRAP, nearly 300,000 tonnes of milk is wasted by UK households each year, with half of households stating that the reason for pouring it away is due to it not being consumed by the Use By date.
As milk can be safe to use past its Best Before date – provided it has been stored properly and doesn’t smell bad – Aldi will encourage shoppers to perform a ‘sniff test’ to determine whether their milk is still fine to consume.
Liz Fox, Sustainability Director at Aldi UK, said: “We are constantly working to be a more sustainable retailer and we are dedicated to preventing food waste wherever we can, both in our stores and helping customers throw away less food at home.
“We hope shoppers embrace this change and look, smell, and taste their milk to see if it’s still fine to use, so together we can reduce the effect food waste has on the environment.”
The removal of Use By Dates is the latest move in Aldi’s efforts to cut its food waste, as it works towards its goal of halving this by 2030.
The supermarket has already removed Best Before dates from around 60 fresh fruit and vegetable lines – including apples and pears, citrus fruits, potatoes, carrots and onions – and earlier this year rolled out its partnership with food surplus app Too Good To Go nationwide. Customers can purchase a Too Good To Go ‘magic bag’ of food that is approaching the end of its shelf life for £3.30, with each bag containing at least £10 of groceries.
Aldi also recently introduced clear caps on its milk bottles to improve recyclability.
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