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Sainsburys Change Freezing Guides To Help Tackle Food Waste

13 February 2012

Supermarket giant Sainsbury's is set to change food-freezing advice on its labels in a bid to slash food waste

Only days after Tesco announced its new packaging trials to keeping food fresher for longer, Sainsbury's has announced its re-evaluated freezing guidelines in order to help in the fight against food waste.

New labels are being rolled out across the UK advising customers to freeze as soon as possible up to the use-by date. The new guide replaces the traditional "freeze on the day of purchase" label.

The move is being made in partnership WRAP in hopes of prevent up to 800,000 tonnes of food waste.

Sainsbury's research states that 62 percent of people in the UK regularly freeze food, while study by WRAP shows only 21 percent of people interviewed had frozen food nearing its use by date during the past week.

Sainsbury's said that changing this advice would help stop over-cautious shoppers from throwing away tonnes of food each year.

Sainsbury's head of product technology for fresh and frozen Beth Hart said: "The 'freeze on day of purchase' advice needs to be changed as there is no food safety reason why it cannot be frozen at any point prior to the use by date.

"As a large UK retailer, we have a responsibility to minimise food waste where possible and this new labelling will certainly help us do that.

"As one customer pointed out to me while discussing the previous labelling, 'how does the product know which day I purchased it on?'"

www.wrap.org.uk

www.sainsburys.co.uk

Darrel Moore