The latest news, trends, analysis, interviews and podcasts from the global food and beverage industry
UK supermarket chain Morrisons has announced that it is scrapping 'use by' dates on 90% of its milk in favour of customers using the sniff test. This has been enforced to help reduce food waste in the home, with Morrisons anticipating the move will prevent millions of pints of milk from being discarded every year. The ‘use by’ dates will be scrapped from Morrisons own-brand British and Scottish milk, Morrisons For Farmers milk and Morrisons organic milk in-store, which are supplied by Arla farmers. Morrisons South West milk and The Best Jersey milk remain unchanged. The company scrapped ‘use by’ dates across some of its own-brand yogurt and hard cheese ranges back in 2020. Morrisons will continue to show 'best before' dates on its milk packaging to indicate to consumers when they should drink it by in order to get the best taste. Ian Goode, senior milk buyer at Morrisons, said: “Wasted milk means wasted effort by our farmers and unnecessary carbon being released into the atmosphere. Good quality well-kept milk has a good few days life after normal ‘use by’ dates – and we think it should be consumed not tipped down the sink. So we’re taking a bold step today and asking customers to decide whether their milk is still good to drink. Generations before us have always used the sniff test – and I believe we can too". The chain has issued instructions for testing milk. For example, if it smells sour then it may have spoiled or if you can see that it has curdled, then it is not fit for consumption. The move aims to support Morrisons' commitment to reducing its food waste in stores by 50% by 2030.