The campaign aims to clear up date label confusion and to prevent unnecessary food waste. Around nine million tonnes of food is wasted across Europe every year and 10% of this is caused by confusion over food labels.
According to the food waste preventing app half of consumers are unaware of the difference between the labels ‘best before’ and ‘use by’.
‘Best before’ tells you when a product is guaranteed to be at its best but store it correctly and it is safe to consume after. The campaign calls on people to 'look, smell and taste' their food before throwing it away.
Ben Elliott, food waste champion for DEFRA, said: “Every year, significant amounts of food are unnecessarily wasted across the country. According to estimates, 180,000 tonnes of this, which equals around half a billion pounds a year, is linked to best before date labelling.
“I strongly support the ‘Look, Smell, Taste’ campaign, and its goal to tackle food waste. By partnering with a great variety of brands and retailers, I hope that we see a real difference soon.”
Too Good To Go has teamed up with food brand to change their packaging and re-classify how products should be labelled.