A Study of Date Labelling Initiatives to Reduce Food Waste in UK Supermarkets

In this project we will examine the impact of two recent initiatives to reduce food waste by certain UK supermarkets: removing the “use by” date of certain products such as milk; and removing the “best before date” on fruits and vegetables. Although removing these date labels will reduce food waste, the impact of their removal on consumer behaviour is yet to be examined. For instance, consumer reaction to these initiatives needs to be gauged to understand whether they approve or could decide to switch their patronage to a different supermarket that has chosen to maintain these date labels. To understand the impact of this date labelling intervention, we will use a large-scale big data set-up that is needed to guide policy and practice.
The project findings will help UK supermarkets and the food industry understand how consumers react to these date labelling interventions. If consumers reactions are found to be positive, more supermarkets are likely to adopt this intervention. As a result, the project will contribute to the reduction of food waste at supermarkets and GHG emissions.

The recently concluded COP27 included its first ever Food Systems Pavilion, which put food at the centre stage; food production is linked to more than a third of greenhouse gases (GHG) (Grocery Gazette, 2022). In addition, about one third of all food produced is wasted, which contributes to ten percent of total GHG emissions (UN Report, 2021). Thus, as climate NGO WRAP puts it, net zero emissions cannot be achieved without reducing food waste.
Currently, the amount of food wasted by supermarkets each year is estimated at 150 million tonnes (UN Report, 2021). Thus, UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 commits to halve food waste at the retail level. As food waste also has significant economic costs for supermarkets (Little & Castella, 2017), they are at the heart of initiatives to reduce food waste (Capgemini, 2017). UK supermarkets have been at the forefront globally, and the CEOs of Coop, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose recently committed to “halve the environmental impact of UK shopping baskets by 2030” (The Independent, 2022). To that end, UK supermarkets have launched several initiatives to reduce food waste.
In this project, we will study the impact of these initiatives on consumer purchase behaviour.