According to The Guardian, lettuce, cucumbers and peppers are among the vegetables and fruits that will have the expiration date removed as a way of encouraging customers to use their own judgement to decide if a product is still good to consume or not.

Waste Resource Action Program (Wrap) believes that the new measure will save around seven million shopping baskets of food from reaching the bin.

Best-before dates are being used on products to indicate their quality, rather than their ability to be consumed, which is indicated by the use-by dates, which can lead to food poisoning if ignored.

Marks and Spencer is another company that eliminated the best-before badges from over 300 fruits and vegetables to reduce food waste.

Tesco was one of the first supermarkets to remove best-before dates from more than 100 fresh foods products back in 2018.

Marija Rompani, director of sustainability and ethics at the John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, said that "UK households throw away 4.5m tons of edible food every year, meaning that all the energy and resources used in food production is wasted."

“By removing best-before dates from our products, we want our customers to use their own judgment to decide whether a product is good to eat or not, which in turn will increase its chances of being eaten and not becoming waste", she added.

Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at Wrap, added that "best-before dates on fruit and veg are unnecessary and create food waste because they get in the way of people using their judgment when food is still good to eat."

"We are absolutely delighted by this move from Waitrose which will help stop good food ending up in the bin", she concluded.