In our latest work with Arla, we supported their campaign to replace ‘use by’ dates and change them to ‘best before’ dates with research finding that 80% of adults don’t understand food labels.
Our poll of 2,000 adults found 85 per cent get confused about the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates, as well as storage information. While three quarters check food and drink packaging before they purchase something, only 15 per cent are confident they can decipher everything on the label.
Fran Ball, director of quality, environment and safety at Arla Foods UK, said: “Our research shows that consumers are clearly confused about labelling on their food products, particularly when it comes to use by and best before dates. As a nation, we waste around 490 million pints of milk every year.”
Our stats emerged in our study for Arla Foods, which will become the first dairy company to remove ‘use by’ dates on all branded fresh milk and replace with ‘best before’ dates, in a bid to cut confusion and help reduce food waste.
During this project, we worked with 72Point our sister company. The research which we gathered was commissioned by Arla a Scandinavian multinational cooperative based in Denmark.
