A new campaign is aiming to educate people on the difference between ‘Best Before’ and ‘Expiry’ dates in order to avoid food waste.

The Look-Smell-Taste campaign encourages consumers to assess food freshness themselves instead of relying solely on the best before date.

On Newstalk Breakfast, Too Good To Go spokesperson Machaela O’Leary urged consumers to learn the difference between the ‘Best Before’ date and the ‘Expiry’ date to avoid wasting otherwise good food.

“‘Use By’ is a safety guidance,” O’Leary explained.

“If your product is past ‘Use By,’ it should not be used; it should be put in the bin – but ‘Best Before’ is a quality indicator, an indicator for freshness.”

Too Good To Go is partnering with a number of major food brands including Kellogs and Ballymaloe to display a Look Smell Taste Don’t Waste label beside the best before date on products.

“Our hope is to inspire consumers to take a second look before discarding products that are past their best before and to trust their senses around whether it’s still good to eat,” she said.

Too Good To Go

According to To Good To Go research, 38% of consumers feel like it’s unsafe to eat products that are past the best before date, while 27% believe that eating foods past the best before date might make them sick.

Ms O’Leary pointed to to the financial cost of food waste.

“When you think of food waste in Ireland, we know that it costs the average consumer €700 per year in food that they are simply discarding,” she said.

Food waste

She said food waste also has an impact on the planet.

“A third of food globally is wasted,” she said. “It accounts for 10% of all greenhouse gasses. It’s a massive environmental issue that I think takes individual actions on an individual level to combat.”

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Reporting by Sarah McKenna Barry.