Best Before dates
We are very careful about managing product "sell by" dates and the rules are very clear. We are somewhat confused by what to regarding "best before" dates and the response from Environmental Health has been of little help. Clearly we want to minimise wastage but, on the other hand, there must be some best practice associated with this. Whilst we can legally sell products after their "best before" date there must be a limit. How do others handle this issue?
It is always a fine balance between holding a credible range of stock particularly fresh produce and the risk of wastage. The advice generally offered when selling items after their best before date is that they must be of a reasonable quality and safe to consume. The onus is on the retailer to ensure that there is no significant deterioration and satisfy themselves that the food meets safety requirements - the risk belongs to the retailer.
Ways to reduce waste or accommodate the cost of waste include-
The items for sale after best before date should be marked as such to inform customers.
A rule of thumb I use as to whether an item is safe to sell would be if I would be prepared to personally consume and also allow my family to do so.
Many thanks for your comments David. I agree with all your comments which we already try to do. Our issue is with slow moving, tinned and packaged ambient goods where there is no hard and fast rule. Many thanks for your help, kind regards, Alun Evans
Hello Alun,
We usually find that we can clear most of our out of date ambient goods through the half price dump bin. Hope this helps.
Best Wishes
David
Hi David, That's a great idea which we will implement. Many thanks, Alun
We have similar problems - particularly as 60% of our buy is fresh local foods! Feeding back an additional mark up on products with higher waste sounds worth a try.
We use the 1/2 price dump bin successfully - most of it moves OK!
Hi Bryan
We already provide higher mark ups on our fresh local produce and for your information we mark these up by 50-60% where possible to give us gross margins of 30 - 40% to provide a good buffer for wastage. Regarding the best before dates on ambient packaged products, one of the best pieces of advice I received was to mark down products approaching their bb date by 10 - 20% on the shelf in order to shift them before the bb date. Once over the bb date they can then go into the reduced items bin. Hope this helps, Alun
Alun - thanks for the info. I doubt that we could go as high as 50% on fresh produce. We struggle to shift veg with only 25 - 30% mark up particularly as all our veg is stored at ambient and after about a day and a half is looking somewhat sad! We endeavour to go for more deliveries during the week such that we do not have to store.
Bryan
Bryan mentions that his veg is stored at ambient which means after a day or so it is looking somewhat sad. No good for higher margins and can mean lots of wastage too. Does anyone have some good ideas for overcoming this? At Tackley a wondeful person in the village made us a veg stand so that the veg is outside during the day and then at night it all comes in and we stuff what we can in the chiller. We have also been trying to turn "nearly gone" veg into soups etc and make bread pudding with our old bread. But sure there is more we could do.
Gill
Hi Gill / Bryan - we are very tight for space also but decided that professional presentation of veg was very important to make it look attractive. We therefore purchased, at a very reasonable cost, a purpose built metal veg stand (which is about 7 foot high and 3 foot wide with 3 or 4 shelves) and in the top there is a mirror which enhances the look of the veg. They are stored at ambient temperature during the day and, as Gill does, stuffed into chillers overnight. We were fortunate to find a small fruit & veg wholesaler who picks up his fresh fruit and veg locally every morning and drops off what we need around 10am. We find that most of the fruit and veg last a few days without deteriorating and, as we can get daily deliveries, our fruit and veg is always fresh, well stocked and well presented. As a result it is one of our most popular lines and we have minimal wastage. Due to the good quality of the fruit and veg we are able to get 30 - 40% margin but we do live in a fairly affluent area where people don't mind paying a bit more for good quality.
We also make bread pudding with our left over bread but I think the idea of making soups with leftover veg is great :-)
We found it hopeless keeping fruit and veg at ambient temperatures so with the aid of grants we have investested in large cooler units with shelves across our back wall.One we keep at 4-5degrees centigrade for meats etc and the other at 9-10 degrees for veg.The display is excellent and the products keep fresh for a much longer time.Another bonus is that these units are much quieter than previous free-standing units.Yes,we use more electricity,but it helps to keep part of the shop cool in summer and in winter I try to remember to pull the blinds down at night.
We do use a cascade chiller with a blind but it is fairly small and mainly used for fresh non veg products. Our problem is mainly during the summer when we have tried insulated boxes with those picnic chiller packs. They last overnight and seems to work after a fashion.