Tackling Food Waste: Carrefour Joins Forces With Too Good To Go.

11 October, 18

To mark World Food Day on 16 October, Carrefour is joining forces with start-up Too Good to Go in a bid to reduce food wastage and support the #Changetadate petition. Carrefour is also going to be testing new wordings to do with minimum durability dates on its products. Indeed, these dates are often misunderstood and are responsible for 20% of households’ food wastage.

Tackling food wastage is in line with the Act for Food programme and Carrefour’s commitment to bringing about the food transition.

Back in 2014, Carrefour was the first retailer to alter or scrap the best before dates on more than 500 of its own-brand products:

– 100 Carrefour products, such as sugar, salt and vinegar all had their minimum durability dates removed.
– 400 fresh or grocery products had their minimum durability dates or use-by dates extended. For example, the use-by dates of Carrefour’s natural yoghurts were extended from 7 to 10 days, without any changes being made to the recipe or to the quality.

#ChangeTaDate petition: Carrefour joins forces with Too Good To Go
Within the framework of its policy of tackling food wastage, Carrefour now wants to go one step further and is taking a stand alongside Too Good to Go, which encourages brands and retailers to revise the semantics used for minimum durability dates (“à consommer de préférence avant…”) on product packaging. The retailer is appealing to consumers to sign and share the #ChangeTaDate petition hosted on the Change.org website.

Carrefour is consulting consumers on the social networks
To clarify the way in which minimum durability dates are expressed, Carrefour is asking consumers on the social networks to help it choose a new wording to replace the traditional “A consommer de préférence avant…”. These expiry dates are poorly understood and are responsible for 20% of food wastage.
Consumers will therefore get to play a role and will be able to choose the future wording that will be tested on Carrefour product packaging from several proposals:
> A consommer de préférence avant le mm/aa, mais pas impérativement! (“To be eaten before the mm/yy, but not imperatively!”)
> A consommer de préférence avant le mm/aa, parce que c’est meilleur avant! (“To be eaten before the mm/yy, because it’s better before!”)
> A consommer de préférence avant le mm/aa pour une dégustation optimale (“To be eaten before the mm/yy for optimum enjoyment”)

Finally, Carrefour wants to campaign to have European legislation revised and to have the “A consommer de préférence avant…” wording replaced by something simpler, along the lines of “Best before…”.

Related posts

20 March, 24
Diageo, the maker of Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky, Don Julio Tequila and Guinness Stout has today announced the launch of a 70cl aluminium spirits bottle with Baileys.
Advertisement

Latest posts