use by, display until, sell by, best before the confusing array of terms that contribute to the annual 7.2m tonnes of food and drink waste. how can we change things for the betterdue to confusion around food labelling, consumers often throw food out when it is perfectly edible. photograph alamyonce it goes beyond its &ldquobest before&rdquo date, most packaged food ends up in landfill. that&rsquos unless dan cluderay gets his hands on it. as founder of approved foods, the sheffieldbased entrepreneur buys &ldquoproblem stock&rdquo from big food brands and sells it online. despite having his business proposal rejected from dragons&rsquo den, last year cluderay shifted almost 10m edible food items, most of which were ostensibly out of date.&ldquowe&rsquove only just sold out of our world cup kellogg&rsquos cereals. their &ldquobest before&rdquo date isn&rsquot until may, but none of the supermarkets want to stock a product linked to an event that&rsquos already passed&rdquo, says cluderay, who started selling outofdate goods at carboot sales across yorkshire.dan cluderay, founder and owner of approved foods and managing director, andy needham. photograph approved foodsbritons throw away 7.2m tonnes of food and drink every year, worth £12bn. the majority is perfectly safe to eat. so why do we chuck it a recent report from governmentbacked waste body wrap argues that often it&rsquos because we&rsquore confused over labelling.faced with a panoply of product life terms &ndash &ldquouse by&rdquo, &ldquodisplay until&rdquo, &ldquosell by&rdquo, &ldquobest before&rdquo and so on &ndash shoppers are unsure when a product is or isn&rsquot ok to eat. the result if in doubt, bin it.among wrap&rsquos recommendations is for &ldquodisplay until&rdquo notices to be scrapped. it would also like to see statements such as &ldquofreeze on the day of purchase&rdquo altered to clarify that food can be safely frozen up to its &ldquouse by&rdquo date. in addition, it says manufacturers and retailers should standardise advice about the safety of products once they have been opened.as it is, most large retailers are already phasing out &ldquosell by&rdquo dates. others, such as sainsbury&rsquos, have ditched &ldquodisplay until&rdquo too. the impacts of the eu food information regulations, which came into force late last year, should see greater labelling consistency across industry as well.sustainable businessjoin guardian sustainable businesssign up today and receive exclusive member newsletters, networking opportunities, memberonly discounts and more.click hereeven so, judith batchelar, brand director at sainsbury&rsquos, says &ldquoyou can never do enough&rdquo to educate consumers about product life information. &ldquohistorically, companies have moved away from consumer education because everyone has done things slightly differently.&rdquocluderay voices a word of scepticism. to his mind, it can serve big retailers&rsquo interests when customers empty their fridges prematurely. batchelar, however, argues that supermarkets are motivated to ensure that food products are consumed at their optimum quality or customers will start complaining.where cluderay does seem to have a strong case is on seasonal and timesensitive promotions. the chocolate in an easter egg lasts well over a year, but manufacturers and retailers typically shorten the &ldquobest before&rdquo date considerably. &ldquothey don&rsquot want those easter eggs around in six months time,&rdquo he says.another key recommendation in the wrap report is to extend the time between a customer&rsquos purchase and a product&rsquos &ldquobest before&rdquo date. this may be as simple as removing the &ldquooverly cautious&rdquo safety or quality &ldquobuffers&rdquo that retailers put in place.technology innovations are helping here too. innovations such as shrinkwrap packaging are helping prevent oxidisation and extending the product of fresh foods considerably.again, cluderay is unsure. adding a few days or even a few weeks to the &ldquobest before&rdquo date will not stop people throwing out food. they&rsquoll just bin it a little later, he says. cluderay insists that shoppers need to know that most products, if stored well, can still be eaten for weeks after the &ldquobest before&rdquo date passes.&ldquoif consumer knew that the beef in a tin had been produced two years ago, what difference does it make if it goes one week after that date&rdquo, he says. as if to prove the point, monthsold beef is rapidly becoming all the rage in gastronomic circles.would you refuse tinned meat that was a week out of date photograph david levenemost people can judge if an apple from a tree is good to eat and cluderay says we should adopt a similar common sense approach to packets of biscuits, rice and pasta. &ldquothese things with &lsquobest before&rsquo dates are not going to kill you or make you ill.&rdquoif you don&rsquot trust your nose, then gelatine labels may soon be on hand to help out. designed originally with blind consumers in mind, the solid gelatine in the bump mark device begins to liquefy when it deteriorates. cleverly, the rate at which it deteriorates mirrors that of the packet&rsquos contents. when the label tab feels squelchy, consumers know the food item is no longer edible.while waste experts welcome efforts to extend product shelf life, some public health experts are less sure. one major concern centres on preservatives. if longer life is due to natural additives such as sugar and salt, or from chemical equivalents such as sodium benzoate, a rise in dietrelated health conditions such as obesity and heart problems may follow.a shift to longerlife food could, albeit unintentionally, reduce consumption of fresh food too. &ldquopushing these dates back,&rdquo says tim lang, professor of food policy at city university london &ldquocan encourage a world in which we say, &lsquolet&rsquos just buy longterm pack food and everything prepackaged&rdquo.the food hub is funded by the irish food board. all content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled &lsquobrought to you by&rsquo. find out more here.join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. become a gsb member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox 
