Interesting News from Holland

[Thomzo]

I have a container of salt that doesn't have any date on it. It's probably so old that it was sold before the best by dates came in.

But there are products, like jam and marmite, that may be fine while they are sealed within their jars, but deteriorate quickly once opened.

Zoe

[okra]

Even ignoring the argument surrounding dates on food and the resulting amount of food wasted we have a huge problem with food waste generally.

Householders waste upto a third of food purchased by bad planning and overbuying. Added to this supermarkets discard out of date stock which goes to landfill.

But even more wasteful is the fact that so much food is wasted before it even gets to the shops. Farmers are contracted to overgrow produce to ensure there is adequate supplies by as much as 40% and also leave a room to discard produce that does not look the right shape or size.

[boboff]

I agree Okra, but a business ability to manage it's waste is central to it's sucess. Back in the day, when I worked in Salmon Processing, derivative management, as we called selling waste, accounted for 100% of our profit one year. It's never black and white.