'Freeze before' advice labels discontinued

10th February 2012 - A national strategy to cut down on the amount of food we chuck away has led a supermarket chain to stop labelling its produce, 'freeze on day of purchase'.

The move by Sainsbury's means an end to their long-standing advice that food we buy should be frozen soon after we get home from the shops, irrespective of the 'sell by' or 'use by' dates.

Instead, customers will be advised to freeze food as soon as possible up to the product's use by date.

Advice 'needs to be changed'

Beth Hart, the supermarket's head of product technology for fresh and frozen said: "The 'freeze on day of purchase' advice needs to be changed as there is no food safety reason why it cannot be frozen at any point prior to the use by date."

The initiative has the backing of the government's advisory body, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), which wants to reduce the estimated 2.9 million tonnes of food and drink thrown away by consumers before it is even cooked or served. It believes customer confusion over date labels and storage guidance is adding to the amount of waste.

Research from Sainsbury's revealed that 62% of UK households regularly use the freezer to lengthen the life of food, while in a separate study by Wrap, only 21% of those people polled had frozen food nearing its use by date during the past week.

For this reason, it is hoped that the new labelling will have an important impact on cutting waste.

Andrew Parry, Wrap's consumer food waste prevention manager, tells BootsWebMD: "We think around 800 tonnes, or about £2 billion, of food waste could be avoided." He says these are "products consumers are throwing away because they're not used in time, or they've gone past the date, but could be frozen".

Food safety

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) says waste-reducing strategies like this are welcome as long as food safety is not compromised. Bob Martin, food safety expert at the FSA, said in an emailed statement: "Freezing after the day of purchase shouldn’t pose a food safety risk as long as food has been stored in accordance with any instructions provided.

"The most important thing is to freeze food before its use by date as that is the only date that relates to food safety. Our advice continues to be to follow the use by date and treat all other dates more flexibly."

Customers can expect other stores to adopt new labelling policies on freezing food. Andrew Parry says, apart from Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer have also begun the process. "We're actively talking to the other retailers as well," he says, "and obviously what we'd like is for all retailers to follow suit."