Tag: best before

Campaign win – Arla to remove ‘Use By’ dates on milk to reduce waste

11th Sep 19 by Christina O'Sullivan

We should be crying over spilled milk and taking tangible steps to reduce food waste in the face of climate catastrophe.

In February, we launched our ‘Milking It’ campaign calling on supermarkets to address their date labelling policies and reduce milk waste. Arla, a massive dairy cooperative who supply supermarket brands such as Cravendale, have committed to scrapping ‘Use By’ date labels on milk and encouraging individuals to use the ‘sniff test’. We are calling on the top four UK supermarkets to do the same.

Write to your supermarket now.

Why we should be crying over spilled milk

The Amazon is on fire and a large driver of this is our current dysfunctional food system. Cows are often fed large amounts of soya which leads to deforestation – read more on soya in our recent blog. Globally, the meat and dairy industries exact a huge toll on our global environment and are major drivers of climate change, estimated to account for 15% of total global emissions – more than the entire global transport sector. At an individual level, although milk is not the most wasted food, milk waste represents the highest contribution to Greenhouse Gas Emissions compared to other food as it is so widely consumed and resource-intensive to produce. Wasting less milk has many positive trickle down effects.

Supermarkets hold a massive amount of power in the food supply chain, and by changing their date labelling policies they have an opportunity to make a real difference

Write to your supermarket now.

What can you do next?
Write to your supermarket
How long does it take: 2 minutes

Tell your supermarket to follow Arla's lead and scrap date labels

Act now