As £17billion worth of ingredients is wasted by Brits every year, one woman has come up with a hack to buy fresher fruit and vegetables that will last for long – reducing costs and waste
A mum has shocked supermarket goers after sharing her hack for stopping food waste.
It was recently revealed by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) that Brits wasted so many vegetables every year that the amount could fill Wembley Stadium’s 90,000 seats eight times over. Nearly three million whole potatoes are thrown away every day in households across the UK – as well as a million whole bananas, and 2.1 million whole carrots.
One woman has come up with a smart way to stop wasting so much fruit and vegetable products. Money Mum, who has gone on to have a Sunday Times bestseller called Save Yourself Happy, is a regular down the discount aisle in supermarkets and is known for being able to bag a bargain. The personal finance influencer has been sharing tips to help families amid the rising cost of living crisis. Now, she says getting your fruit and vegetables to last longer is all down to a coded label.
Taking to her Instagram account, which boats 440,000 followers, Gemma claimed: “Ok did you know this! A is the month so Jan. The number is the date so say the 18th. Stop getting food waste.”
She pointed to labels on leaks in a Tesco supermarket recently, showing where you can see the code. She claims that as one packaging said ‘F15’ this means June 15. She added: “Want to know a hack for buying freshers food? The F is the month! So June if F, and that is month six. January would be A.”
Gemma added: “It means you can buy the fresher food rather than it going off quickly – wasting food and money.”
A Tesco employee previously told The Express that she was taught about the coding. The content creator demonstrated on packs of mangetout; the bag on the left had the code A3 versus the bag on the right displaying the code A6. The letter correlates to the month of the year, and the number is the day. A equates to January and three is the 3rd day of the month, or six is the sixth day of the month.
Commenting on Money Mum’s video, another supermarket worker said: “Until I started working in Tesco doing the reductions. I had no idea about this. It’s such a good thing for helping reduce waste.”
Another individual added: “It’s meant to stop so much waste.” Another wrote: “This is amazing! [I] was getting so annoyed not knowing how old the veg was when it doesn’t have a date on it!
One other commented: “These dates are to help with stock rotation and reduce waste. Too many people do not use food because of a date on the pack.” “Wow did not know that,” added one other.
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