25% of Brits throw away food past its best-before date without checking if it’s edible, and 29% admit to throwing food away solely due to the best-before date, according to research by Too Good To Go.
Opinion Matters surveyed 2,000 UK adults on behalf of Too Good To Go, an online marketplace for surplus food, between 5 April and 8 April 2024.
According to the research, 19.4 million food items are wasted every day, which is 135.8 million items per week. Most adults throw away more food on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays than any other day of the week, the survey found.
16-24-year-olds said they throw away three items per week on average, compared to over 55’s who said they throw away one item per week.
55% of UK adults over 55 keep food past its “best before” date, whereas only 28% of those aged 16-24 do, which Too Good To Go said is due to confusion over date labels.
One of the reasons households are a main contributor to food waste is because many of us don’t know the difference between ‘Best Before’, ‘Sell By’, ‘Display Until’ and ‘Use By’.
Older generations are also the most knowledgeable on properly storing food, with 70% claiming they are confident in the area, compared to 48% of those aged 16-24.
11% of respondents didn’t feel confident in explaining the definition of the “sell by” date on food items, and 14% were not confident in explaining the “display until” date.
Jamie Crummie, co-founder of Too Good To Go, commented: “We are on a mission to fight food waste, and believe that by adapting your habits you make the most out of everything you buy.
“One of the reasons households are a main contributor to food waste is because many of us don’t know the difference between ‘Best Before’, ‘Sell By’, ‘Display Until’ and ‘Use By’. This is causing a whopping 10% of Europe’s food waste – 9,000,000 tonnes across Europe each year.
“At Too Good To Go, we are encouraging households to sense-check food instead of blindly binning it due to a lapsed date with our ‘Look, Smell, Taste, Don’t Waste’ advice. It is a simple way for households to reduce food waste, save money and cut down their emissions.”
