Our thinking

New year resolutions, anyone?

14 January, 2022

Let’s make 2022 the year we really get to grips with sustainable eating.  

Oda, a supermarket in Norway, has introduced carbon labelling. This small change has helped consumers reduce their meat intake and has demonstrated a trend from their consumers towards less carbon heavy vegetarian options. Will others follow? 

In the UK, 2022 will see the disappearance of ‘use by’ dates from (initially) 90% of Morrison’s own-brand milks. Why? Because the best way to reduce food waste is to consume food before it goes off and ‘use by’ dates have encouraged Britons to bin their milk too early. Today 7% of all produced milk is wasted, and that’s a lot of inefficient resource use. Let’s be honest, we are intelligent people and we can all tell by a simple sniff whether the milk has soured. And if it has, there are creative ways to use it.  

And should safety and regulations be a source of concern, supermarkets should follow Wrap’s best practice guidelines which clearly indicate that milk doesn’t present specific food safety concerns. Or better yet, take out additional insurance to cover a consumers’ food poisoning should the food be past the ‘use by’ date. Want another solution? Consider using a Mimica tag rather than a use by date. This innovation uses sensitive indicators and changes texture when food actually spoils, rather than relying an often misleading ‘use by’ date.  

It’s great to see brands take the lead and help us consumers transition to being more sustainable, whether it be providing us with more context or by helping rely on our own intuitions. 

By Marie Guérinet