Morrisons will be the first UK supermarket to switch to 'Best Before' dates on its own brand milk as part of efforts to help reduce food waste.
From 31 January, the retailer will scrap 'Use By' dates on 90% of its own brand milk, instead encouraging customers to use a sniff test.
According to Morrisons, the move will stop millions of pints of milk from being thrown away every year.
‘Use By’ dates will be scrapped from its own brand milks, Morrisons For Farmers milks and Morrisons organic milks in store. Morrisons South West milk and The Best Jersey milk are yet to be converted.
The supermarket chain will instead encourage its customers to use a sniff test to check if their milk is still good to consume.
The milk packaging will show ‘Best Before’ dates to indicate to customers when they should drink it by - to get the best taste.
Unlike some other fresh products, drinking milk after a ‘Best Before’ date is not a food safety issue.
Figures show that milk is the third most wasted food and drink product in the UK, after potatoes and bread, with around 490 million pints wasted every year.
And milk has the largest carbon footprint of these food and drink products because its production is so resource-intensive. One litre of milk can account for up to 4.5kg of CO2.
Research shows fresh milk can often last a number of days past the ‘Use By’ date shown on the bottle.
However UK customers are routinely throwing away milk - as they incorrectly believe the milk is unsafe to drink.
Food waste organisation WRAP estimates that 85 million pints of milk waste may be a result of customers sticking to ’Use By’ labels or ‘once opened use within’ guidance - when products may still be good to consume.
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.”
Marcus Gover, CEO at WRAP, added he was 'delighted' that Morrisons was the first UK supermarket to take the 'important step'.
"WRAP’s joint Best Practice with FSA and Defra is to only apply a ‘Use By’ date when required for food safety reasons," Mr Gover said.
"Applying a Best Before date to indicate quality on all other products means people have longer to use their food.
"Almost 300,000 tonnes of milk is wasted from UK homes each year, worth £270 million, with the main reason being that it isn’t used in time."
