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Retail Programme - Food Waste: Final Report

Research into consumer behaviour in relation to food dates and portion sizes

This project examined two aspects of consumer behaviour in relation to food waste: understanding (and use) of guidance dates on packs; and demand for more varied portion sizes. General and food-type specific insights have been obtained which should allow WRAP and others to develop advice and solutions to help consumers reduce the amount of food they throw away.

Project code: EVA046 Research date: October 2007 Date: July 2008

WRAP helps individuals, businesses and local authorities to reduce waste and recycle more, making better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change.

Written by: Brook Lyndhurst

© Brook Lyndhurst 2007 This report has been produced by Brook Lyndhurst Ltd under/as part of a contract placed by WRAP. Any views expressed in it are not necessarily those of WRAP. Brook Lyndhurst warrants that all reasonable skill and care has been used in preparing this report. Notwithstanding this warranty, Brook Lyndhurst shall not be under any liability for loss of profit, business, revenues or any special indirect or consequential damage of any nature whatsoever or loss of anticipated saving or for any increased costs sustained by the client or his or her servants or agents arising in any way whether directly or indirectly as a result of reliance on this report or of any error or defect in this report.

Front cover photography: Product shot showing display until and best before date WRAP and Brook Lyndhurst believe the content of this report to be correct as at the date of writing. However, factors such as prices, levels of recycled content and regulatory requirements are subject to change and users of the report should check with their suppliers to confirm the current situation. In addition, care should be taken in using any of the cost information provided as it is based upon numerous project-specific assumptions (such as scale, location, tender context, etc.). The report does not claim to be exhaustive, nor does it claim to cover all relevant products and specifications available on the market. While steps have been taken to ensure accuracy, WRAP cannot accept responsibility or be held liable to any person for any loss or damage arising out of or in connection with this information being inaccurate, incomplete or misleading. It is the responsibility of the potential user of a material or product to consult with the supplier or manufacturer and ascertain whether a particular product will satisfy their specific requirements. The listing or featuring of a particular product or company does not constitute an endorsement by WRAP and WRAP cannot guarantee the performance of individual products or materials. This material is copyrighted. It may be reproduced free of charge subject to the material being accurate and not used in a misleading context. The source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged. This material must not be used to endorse or used to suggest WRAP’s endorsement of a commercial product or service. For more detail, please refer to WRAP’s Terms & Conditions on its web site: www.wrap.org.uk

Research into consumer behaviour in relation to food dates and portion sizes 1

Executive summary The research This project examined two aspects of consumer behaviour in relation to food waste: understanding (and use) of guidance dates on packs; and demand for more varied portion sizes. One of the main considerations in planning this work was that the research should be observational, testing consumer responses to food in a situation as close to the home environment as possible. Although some of the issues surrounding both the use of guidance dates and portion sizes lend themselves to qualitative research, there was also a firm desire from WRAP to get more definitive, quantitative data. This latter requirement made the cost implications of in-home research prohibitive and hall tests were put forward as offering the best compromise between desired methodology and cost, allowing us to present reasonably large numbers of respondents with real examples of packs without the expense of visiting them at home. In order to gather feedback on as wide a range of products as possible, the halls were divided into three stations, each made up of two tables – one to be used for the guidance dates part of the questionnaire and one for the portion sizes section. In order to ensure the project achieved a reasonable geographical coverage, six hall tests were conducted in different locations across three cities – London (and the Home Counties), Birmingham and Sheffield, towards the end of October 2007. In total we interviewed 418 people about their behaviour in relation to a total of 16 products. Guidance dates Use of dates Perhaps the most striking finding from the research is the degree to which people claim to make use of guidance dates in some form or other. On almost three quarters of the occasions on which respondents were presented with a product, they said they used an on-pack date to decide whether or not it was okay to consume. In addition, in over half of the remaining cases, respondents said they would sometimes have referred to a guidance date for the product in question, but had simply not felt the need to in this instance. Understanding of dates For the products tested in the halls, 43% of those who used a date said they had referred to a ‘use by’ date, 24% to a ‘best before’ date, 5% to a ‘sell by’ date and 4% to a ‘display until’ date. This is instructive on two counts. Firstly, none of the products used in the halls carried a ‘sell by’ date, suggesting that those who used this term were using it generically to refer to any date label and therefore did not distinguish between date types. Secondly, there were equal numbers of products carrying ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates in the tests, which makes the greater number of respondents referring to the ‘use by’ date look a little odd. Again, this suggests that terms act as ‘catch all’ phrases for consumers and that ‘use by’ is one such catch all phrase. It should be stressed that the key here is not always poor understanding of what the different types of dates actually mean. When respondents were asked to define the different sorts of dates, despite some confusion, many correctly linked ‘best before’ dates with quality, ‘use by’ dates with safety and ‘sell by’ and ‘display until’ dates with retailer guidance. There was, however, a sizeable minority who gave definitions that were either totally wrong or showed significant confusion – i.e. they referred to both quality and safety, or were very vague. Thus, although respondents in 65% of cases linked ‘best before’ dates with product quality, in 27% of cases they mentioned safety. Similarly, while in 52% of cases respondents linked ‘use by’ dates to product safety, in 21% of cases they mentioned product quality. While we might ideally like clarity on how many of those who gave a ‘wrong’ answer did so as part of a longer response that included the ‘correct’ definition, it is already clear that a great deal of confusion exists. There is an interesting addendum here. While the numbers of those giving ‘incorrect’ answers are too small for each date type to allow for robust analysis by sub-group, it does appear that for almost every type of date, more affluent social classes were more likely to answer correctly (and perhaps more importantly, less likely to answer incorrectly). Thus, when asked to give a definition for ‘best before’, 21% of ABs mentioned product safety


compared with 37% of DEs. There was a similar story in terms of ‘sell by’ dates; 91% of ABs asked about ‘sell by’ dates said the retailer had to sell the product by that date compared with 71% for DEs. Are lower levels of education attainment to blame for this trend? Are more affluent families more date conscious? Or are they more safety conscious? It would require further research to prove that there is a definite class divide on this issue and if there is, what the cause might be. This may well be an area that warrants further research and is certainly worth bearing in mind when developing audience-specific messaging. Dates and perceptions of safety People’s use of dates seems frequently to be only partially linked to their understanding of what is meant by those dates and also factors in their perceived needs according to particular products. If they are ‘distrustful’ of a particular product, they may use the date irrespective of what kind of date it is. The reason given by those respondents who did not feel the need to check a particular product’s date(s) was often that it looked or smelled okay. This highlights a crucial point – that people use dates in conjunction with their own assessments of quality and safety, rather than as stand-alone information. This is supported by the fact that although more people said dairy products and eggs were not okay to eat, those respondents who did feel these items were okay were often willing to consume them two days or more after the date on the pack. Those who felt that these products were not okay to eat, on the other hand, were closely wedded to the date on pack, most of them claiming they would only have eaten them if the date had been the same as the hall test or before. This suggests an interesting interplay between guidance dates and personal perceptions of individual products. People appear to discard food that has passed its guidance date when they ‘distrust’ a product on safety grounds, but when they are more confident about a product, they will use the date as a yardstick, applying their own product-specific ‘rules’ to come to a decision about when that item becomes too risky to eat. These rules generally focus upon the look – and to a lesser extent, the smell and feel – of a product, but are also linked to general expectations of product life. Thus, potatoes (and fruit and vegetables more generally) seem to rank among the most ‘safe’ products. Perhaps the most important point here is that perceptions about whether products are ‘trustworthy’ or not varies from person to person. As we have already seen, although almost half of those presented with eggs said they were not okay to eat, many of those who said they would eat them were willing to be flexible in relation to dates, suggesting that there is a real split between those who strictly adhere to the on-pack guidance and those that make their own decision. The number of people who are discarding food due to safety concerns arising from a misinterpretation of dates seems low, but it is worth highlighting some particular products where this sort of misunderstanding does seem to occur, since however small the percentage of people behaving in this way, the impact in terms of overall waste tonnages could still be significant. A good example is ham. Five of the 139 people asked about ham used the ‘use by’ date to decide that it was not okay to eat, despite the fact that the hall tests took place before that date. Three of those thought the product was unsafe to eat – that is to say, they did not seem to know – or to believe – that food would definitely be safe up until midnight on the ‘use by’ date, assuming it was stored correctly. It’s a similar story with the following products: Chicken Ten of the 142 people asked about chicken said they used the date to decide it was not okay to eat and were concerned about safety. As with ham, this implies that those people either have insufficient faith in ‘use by’ dates, leaving themselves a ‘safety buffer’, or simply do not know that a ‘use by’ date means the product will be safe to eat right up until midnight on the date on the pack. Yoghurt Far more people felt that yoghurt was not okay to eat because of safety concerns linked to the date on the pack – 33 of the 139 people asked. The problem here is very different to chicken and ham because the date in question was a ‘best before’ date (yoghurts can be found carrying either a “best-before” or “use-by” date, those


selected for this research had the former). It seems likely that some of these people may have been influenced by a perception of yoghurt as being a potentially dangerous product when out of date, an impression that will only have been reinforced by many brand owners and retailers preferring to print ‘use by’ dates on their yoghurts. Cheese In some ways cheese is similar to yoghurt – it carries a ‘best before’ date and a significant number of those asked about it said date-related safety concerns would prevent them from eating it (20 of 139 people, or 14%). However, it differs to yoghurts in that the use of ‘best before’ dates to decide whether cheese is okay to eat is more widespread, despite the fact that most cheeses have a long shelf life. Tomatoes and potatoes The story on tomatoes and potatoes is a similar one, with relatively small numbers of people saying they would not eat produce because it was past its ‘best before’ date, causing them to have concerns about safety. For tomatoes, this view was held by five of the 138 people asked. For potatoes, this figure was four of 137. In both cases, but particularly for potatoes in view of their prominence in UK household food waste, these small numbers, if even the roughest of indications of the national situation, still suggest that many tonnes of food waste are being generated through this sort of misunderstanding of the dates. Dates and perceptions of quality This research has also demonstrated the importance of another factor in the use of dates that presents a difficult challenge for WRAP. A certain proportion of consumers – larger for some products than for others – seem to use dates to determine whether or not a product is of a sufficiently ‘good’ quality to eat. Before quality becomes an issue, consumers will normally – either consciously or subconsciously – have concluded that a product is ‘safe’, but nonetheless use the date to decide that it is simply no longer of the standard they desire. So, for a long-shelf life product like potatoes, some people are discarding produce that is of a perfectly acceptable quality because it has passed its ‘best before’ date. In a sense, this sort of behaviour is perfectly understandable. If potatoes are cheap, why would you not buy new ones if the pack itself is telling you that the ones you have are no longer at their ‘best’. Why eat sub-standard vegetables if you do not need to? Figure A below tries to capture this interplay between perceptions of quality and safety and the dates themselves. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the diagram is that understanding of the type of date almost plays second fiddle to these overriding concerns about safety and quality. It’s obviously difficult to tell people who are taking either ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ dates as a sign of inferior quality and discarding edible food as a result that they are ‘wrong’ – certainly in the case of ‘best before’ dates, they have understood the meaning perfectly. The problem is not a misunderstanding of the dates, but rather an attitudinal one that says that food that is not at its ‘best’ should be thrown away1. Even if educating people about the meaning of dates won’t help, however, it is still useful to have a better handle on the existence – and the size – of the problem. As with worries about safety, the numbers are too small to rely on to generate a national estimate of this sort of waste, but they do signify that the problem is a real one that seems to apply across most ‘best before’ products. It is perhaps most concerning for the longer shelf life products such as potatoes (where seven of the 137 asked said the product was not okay to eat, used the date to reach that decision and were concerned about quality), tomatoes (seven of 138) and cheese (nine of 139). As for concerns about safety, if anything close to these figures were replicated on a national level, it could account for significant amounts of food waste.

1 It’s worth noting there are two sides to this problem. First and foremost there seems to be a pervasive belief that ‘new’ is ‘better’, but perhaps more worrying still, these results suggest that many people never think of ‘secondary’ uses for produce that has past its best, be that making bread and butter pudding or simply cutting the ‘bad bits’ off an apple.


Figure A ‘Routes’ to deciding whether a product is okay to eat

What does this mean for WRAP? So if decisions about whether or not a product is okay to eat are an outcome not only of the date on the pack and assessments of its physical attributes (appearance, smell and feel), but also of individuals’ own ‘rules’ in relation to what those factors actually mean, what does this all mean for WRAP? Perhaps the most immediate conclusion is that there is not one simple solution that will eradicate food waste caused by people misusing or misunderstanding guidance dates. In the table below, we summarise some possible courses of action, together with the products they are most relevant to. Table A: Key recommendations from the research No. Product(s) Action/goal Detail Further questions

1 Salad, cut fruit, ready meals

None The number of people discarding these products through misunderstanding or misuse of guidance dates seems to be very small.

Might it be possible to extrapolate this finding to all fruit and vegetables products carrying a ‘use by’ date?

2 All products carrying a ‘use by’ date, especially ham

Emphasise that ‘use by’ dates can be trusted as guarantees of product safety

There was evidence that people were leaving a ‘buffer’ before the ‘use by’ date for some products, potentially causing them to be discarded while still okay to eat

How big is the gain? Because the numbers of relevant respondants are so small, it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty.

3 All products carrying a ‘use by’ date

Emphasise that ‘use by’ dates apply right up to midnight on the date on the pack

There is evidence that some people consider ‘use by’ dates in their most literal sense, interpreting them as meaning, “must be used by XXX date”. Emphasising to them that products are safe right up until midnight on the night of the date on the pack could reduce food waste.

Could emphasising the midnight cut-off encourage some people to eat food the day after its ‘use by’ date on the basis that the product will not suddenly have ‘gone bad’?

4 Bread, yoghurt, eggs

Replace ‘best before’ dates with ‘use by’ dates on short shelf-life products

Some people seem to be using ‘best before’ dates on some products such as bread as a sign that it is no longer of a satisfactory quality. By replacing ‘best before’ dates with ‘use by’ dates that were

How big would the gains be? How would consumers react to the change in date type? If they felt they had to “guess” a ‘best before’ date, is there a chance they would actually end up

Perception of product safety

Is product okay to eat?

Date (and type of date)

Perception of product quality


closer to the date bread is likely to go mouldy, this sort of behaviour could be overcome. This action is particularly relevant to eggs, which the FSA recommends should not be eaten beyond their ‘best before’ dates and which may currently be muddying the waters for consumers.

throwing away products earlier?

5 Yoghurt Standardise use of dates for products of the same type

Many respondents who looked at yoghurt seemed to interpret the ‘best before’ dates on the pack as ‘use by’ dates. It is possible that this is because most yoghurts do carry ‘use by’ dates. If yoghurts really do pose a significant danger if eaten out of date, it could be beneficial to have all yoghurts carrying ‘use by’ dates. Equally, if the threat is not that great, switching all yoghurts to ‘best before’ dates could be helpful. If different types of a given product (i.e. different types of yoghurt) present different risks, it might also be worth explaining these on pack.

6 Longer life ‘best before’ products including yoghurt, cheese, tomatoes and potatoes

Improve consumer understanding and awareness of the meaning of (and differences between) different types of dates

If we learned one thing from this research it was that there is definitely a group of consumers who do not correctly differentiate between the different types of guidance date. Emphasising that ‘best before’ dates relate only to quality could see products marked with those dates being kept significantly longer.

There is also a concern that consumers who are currently flexible with ‘use by’ dates might begin to adhere to them more strictly if it were emphasised that they relate to product safety. It is also possible that conveying to consumers that ‘best before’ dates only relate to quality may not be sufficient, since they may simply ask, “Well in that case, how do I know when it is unsafe to eat?” Should we also be considering public education about storage and food safety for certain key products?

Portion sizes Arguably, the portion sizes element of this research was more straightforward than the guidance dates element. We were aiming to gain a better understanding of two areas: firstly, what proportion of the general public is dissatisfied with the size of portions available to buy for certain key products and why they are dissatisfied; and secondly, what might be the demand for alternative portion sizes? Issues with portion sizes The answers to both these questions were reasonably consistent across the four products tested and offer WRAP a good steer on attitudes towards pack sizes. Around a third of respondents have had issues with portion sizes for ham, salad, pasta sauce and bread. It seems fair to extrapolate this finding to sandwich meats, pre-packed fruit, all loaves of bread and cooking sauces in general. Of those that had found portion sizes to be an issue, the vast majority complained that packs were too large for their needs (with some directly complaining that this led to food waste, though this was not always made explicit). As might be expected, it was those in smaller households that were more likely to register dissatisfaction with existing pack sizes. Pasta sauce provided a notable exception, with some consumers complaining that portions are sometimes too small. Willingness to buy smaller packs The average price respondents said they were willing to pay for a pack half the size of a ‘standard’ pack was between 51% and 65% of the ‘standard’ pack price, suggesting that consumers are not necessarily averse to


paying a little more per unit of volume/weight to avoid being left with unnecessary surplus. Having said this, the variation between products in how much more respondents were willing to pay was considerable. There are also two important caveats:

First of all, it should be reiterated that questions about interviewees’ willingness to pay more – whether that

be switching to energy saving light bulbs or a smaller pack size – frequently lead to over-claiming.

Secondly, when interviewees who said they would not consider buying packs in alternative sizes were asked

why, price was listed as a significant factor. This on its own wouldn’t be a huge concern – after all, these

people are hardly likely to be the prime market for smaller packs, but in addition, 15% of those who said they

would consider smaller packs but admitted to having reservations about doing so listed price as a concern.

Whilst neither of these factors on their own is particularly significant – the base in both cases was relatively small – they do indicate an underlying concern about price that is likely to have been downplayed in the positive predictions of ‘willingness to pay’. It is also the case that where price is not mentioned as a barrier per se, it may be implied in some of the other worries outlined (e.g. in having to buy multiple packs). Barriers to buying smaller packs Very few people raised concerns about smaller packs increasing packaging waste, but more were concerned that reducing portion sizes would simply see them having to buy more portions – primarily a concern for those in larger households. Ideal pack sizes Preferences in terms of ideal pack size were relatively consistent. In the case of sandwich meats and salad bags, there was a clear preference for packs around half the size of those used as examples of ‘standard’ portions. For pasta and for bread – products for which there was slightly less support for smaller portion sizes – there was a split between those supporting half-size packs and those who were happy with standard portions. Problem products Finally, we asked respondents to try and remember any product types they had struggled with in the past in terms of finding appropriate portion sizes. Interestingly, baked goods was the most popular category mentioned, despite the fact that in the questions on the sample products, a smaller proportion of people said they had issues with portion sizes for bread than did for ham, salad, or pasta sauce. This may well reflect difficulties with baked goods other than bread. What next? There is certainly a case for attempting to improve the supply of smaller pack sizes, but we suggest that question marks remain about how much people will be willing to pay for these. While the results of this research suggest that people may be willing to pay a premium for smaller packs (i.e. more than half the price of a standard pack for a portion that is actually half of the size), this margin is relatively small if we take into account likely over-claiming by respondents. The answer may be to target smaller pack sizes at convenience stores, which are perhaps more likely to be frequented by those living in smaller households and where there may therefore be a logic for the retailer in stocking more, smaller packs. So far as the wider UK population is concerned, however, only in-shop pilots will tell us conclusively whether or not someone from a smaller household, when confronted with a choice between a small pack and a larger product that is cheaper by volume, will elect to pay more for less. Certainly, this research suggests that a market does exist if the right products are on offer at the right price. It is worth making one final point. Packs of different sizes are nothing new and while portions for single-person households may not be that common, variation in sizing does occur. Moreover, we are confident that the pricing of these different pack sizes is something that is carefully monitored by supermarkets, which will be continually trying to balance competitiveness, profitability and choice. Whether or not they would be willing to divulge any data they hold on sales of different portion sizes – and in particular the impact that changes in price or size may have had in the past – is uncertain, but if WRAP were able to access this sort of data it would provide an interesting addendum to this research.


Contents 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 8 2.0 Background .............................................................................................................................. 9

2.1 Why was the study needed?...................................................................................................9 2.2 Aims of the research..............................................................................................................9

3.0 Methodology and issues......................................................................................................... 10 3.1 General approach ................................................................................................................10 3.2 Issues.................................................................................................................................12

4.0 Results - general .................................................................................................................... 16 4.1 Sub-group analysis ..............................................................................................................16 4.2 Analysis by location .............................................................................................................16

5.0 Results - Food guidance date labelling .................................................................................. 17 5.1 The first judgement: is a product okay to eat? ......................................................................17 5.2 Respondent behaviour & decision making .............................................................................19 5.3 Dates: establishing the boundaries of acceptability ................................................................22 5.4 Concerns about the date......................................................................................................24 5.5 Those who did not use the date….........................................................................................25 5.6 Impact of open packaging....................................................................................................26 5.7 General questions................................................................................................................28 5.8 Understanding of guidance dates..........................................................................................30 5.9 Guidance dates: the detail ...................................................................................................35

6.0 Results - pack sizes ................................................................................................................ 43 6.1 Shopping habits...................................................................................................................43 6.2 Portion size issues ...............................................................................................................43 6.3 Consideration of smaller packs .............................................................................................45 6.4 Reservations .......................................................................................................................47 6.5 Pricing ................................................................................................................................47 6.6 Most appropriate pack size...................................................................................................51 6.7 General questions................................................................................................................52

7.0 Conclusions and recommendations........................................................................................ 54 7.1 Guidance dates ...................................................................................................................54 7.2 Portion sizes........................................................................................................................59

Appendix 1 - Date labelling products ................................................................................................. 61 Appendix 2 - Pack size products ........................................................................................................ 63 Appendix 3 – The questionnaire......................................................................................................... 64


1.0 Introduction The overall aim of the Retail Team at WRAP is to reduce the amount of food and packaging that ends up in the household bin, by working with retailers and their supply chains, and by seeking to change the behaviour of consumers so that less food becomes waste. An estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food waste is generated by households in the UK every year, equating to approximately £420 of food wasted per household per year. This piece of research feeds into a wider WRAP programme of research to help direct and monitor the impact of a communications campaign launched in November 2007. The campaign, Love Food Hate Waste is designed to increase awareness of food as a wasted resource in the home and bring about a change in household behaviours.


2.0 Background 2.1 Why was the study needed? In June 2007, Brook Lyndhurst was appointed by WRAP to carry out research into customer behaviour in relation to food packaging. This research follows a number of earlier projects commissioned by WRAP, which have explored the issues surrounding consumer behaviour in relation to food waste in the UK.2 This earlier research unearthed a large number of reasons for people throwing food away, including:

not having the time to plan meals effectively;

buying too much;

not remembering what is already in the fridge or cupboard;

a lack of knowledge about what to do with leftovers (and how to do it);

wanting to be a ‘good provider’ to one’s family;

high sensitivity to food quality guidance dates, coupled with a lack of understanding of what those dates

mean; and

inappropriate portion sizes.

When the brief for this research was originally issued by WRAP it essentially constituted a wish list that would have explored many of these causes in more detail. Previous research had not focused on particular causes of food waste and had relied on claimed, rather than observed behaviour. If effective interventions were to be planned and implemented by WRAP (and others) to minimise food waste among UK households, then a greater understanding would be required of why people actually throw food away, rather than why they think they do. 2.2 Aims of the research It was decided that the research would focus on two areas:

Use by & best before dates

Consumer understanding of four types of food guidance dates (use by, sell by, display until, best before); and

The role of dates in consumers’ decisions on whether or not three key product types (fruit/vegetables, meat/fish, bread/dairy) need to be thrown away or not.

Portion size

Whether there is a real demand for smaller pack sizes and what might drive this demand; and How much customers might pay, if anything, for more suitable [smaller] pack sizes.

2 Including: Brook Lyndhurst (2007), WRAP Food Behaviour Consumer Research and IDG (2007), Understanding Household Food Waste in the UK; and Exodus Market Research (2007), Food Storage and Packaging: An investigation of consumer attitudes and behaviour in respect of food storage and packaging


3.0 Methodology and issues This section outlines the approach taken, as well as highlighting a number of challenges connected with that approach. 3.1 General approach One of the main considerations in planning this work was that the research should be observational, testing consumer responses to food in a situation as close to the home environment as possible. Although some of the issues surrounding both the use of guidance dates and portion sizes lend themselves to qualitative research, there was also a firm desire from WRAP to get more definitive, quantitative data. This latter requirement made the cost implications of in-home research prohibitive and hall tests were put forward as offering the best compromise between desired methodology and cost, allowing us to present reasonably large numbers of respondents with real examples of packs without the expense of visiting them at home. In order to ensure the project achieved a reasonable geographical coverage, six hall tests were conducted in different locations across three cities – London (and the Home Counties), Birmingham and Sheffield. The dates and locations of the hall tests are show in the table below, together with the number of respondents interviewed in each case: Table 1: Dates, locations of hall tests and number of interviews completed in each case Location Date Number of respondents

London 1 (Sutton) 20 October 2007 60

London 2 (Kingston) 20 October 2007 72

Birmingham 1 27 October 2007 70

Birmingham 2 27 October 2007 73

Sheffield 1 27 October 2007 72

Sheffield 2 27 October 2007 71

TOTAL ` 418

Product selection The exact selection of which types of food and drink would be tested was influenced by a number of factors: 1 There was a supposition that different food groups would be treated differently by consumers,

particularly in relation to guidance dates. Fresh produce like fruit and vegetables, for instance, might be expected to be treated very differently to meat and fish. Three main product groups were therefore identified as:

A: Fruit and vegetables B: Meat and fish C: Dairy

In addition, there was a fourth group of products that fell outside of these three categories:

D: Ready meals, eggs and bread


2 Hall tests rely upon interviewers’ ability to recruit passersby. This often involves an assurance that the interview will not take very long and we were advised by ICM, who have considerable experience running hall tests, that a questionnaire that took any longer than 15 minutes to complete would make recruitment – and retention of respondents over the course of the interview – far harder. Even rotating the products tested so that each respondent only answered questions on a limited number, this 15 minute barrier placed severe limitations on how many individual products we could test.

3 The product selection for the portion sizes element of the work was handled slightly differently. In this

case, WRAP knew from previous research which types of foods consumers claim are the most problematic in terms of portioning. Testing responses to these items was therefore a priority.

The final list of products tested across the research as a whole was therefore as follows: Table 2: Products used in the hall tests Product Product group Research topic

Bags of salad Fruit & veg Guidance dates

Cut fruit Fruit & veg Guidance dates

Potatoes Fruit & veg Guidance dates

Tomatoes Fruit & veg Guidance dates

Chicken fillets Meat, fish Guidance dates

Ham Meat, fish Guidance dates

Ready meals Ready meals, eggs and bread Guidance dates

Cheese Dairy Guidance dates

Milk Dairy Guidance dates

Bread Ready meals, eggs and bread Guidance dates

Yoghurt Dairy Guidance dates

Eggs Ready meals, eggs and bread Guidance dates

Bread N/A Pack sizes

Ham N/A Pack sizes

Pasta sauce N/A Pack sizes

Bags of salad N/A Pack sizes

The importance of food shopping and food preparation While almost everyone in a household is likely, at some point, to make a decision about whether or not an item of food is okay to be eaten, it seems reasonable to expect the majority of those decisions to be made by the person who does most food preparation. The same is also true for portion sizes – those who cook the most are most likely to be frustrated by inappropriate portion sizes. It was also felt that those with responsibility for their household’s main grocery shopping would be more familiar with food guidance dates, since we knew that these dates are checked by some consumers at the point of sale. Main shoppers are also more aware of the full range of portion sizes available and so would be better informed on this topic.


Respondents were therefore asked two screening questions that rooted out anyone who did not undertake a considerable amount of food preparation, or food shopping. This approach had been used successfully by Brook Lyndhurst in our previous food waste research for WRAP. The structure of the hall tests In order to gather feedback on as wide a range of products as possible, the halls were divided into three stations, each made up of two tables – one to be used for the guidance dates part of the questionnaire and one for the portion sizes section. Each respondent was sent to one of these three stations, each of which had a different selection of products. The supervisor in each hall was responsible for ensuring that roughly equal numbers of respondents went to each station over the course of the day. For the date labelling part of the interview, each participant was questioned about four of the 12 items (with the order in which they were presented varied for each participant). Milk and bread were presented opened as it was felt that this would more accurately reflect the situation in-home at the point when consumers decide whether the product is suitable for consumption. While this might also have been true for some other products such as cheese, it was felt that these products are subject to substantial variation in how people store them once opened and that this could alienate some respondents. When participants moved to the second table for the portion sizes part of the questionnaire, they were presented with two of the products listed in the bottom half of Table 2 above (bread plus one other). 3.2 Issues This project presented certain unusual challenges, mainly around the number of products being used and the perishable nature of the props. The main ones are outlined over the following paragraphs. Sample size Using three separate testing stations to test different products essentially divided our total sample by three for the product-specific questions, so that approximately 130 responses were gathered for each product over the course of the research. This was clearly not a perfect solution, but there was little alternative without either the questionnaire becoming too long to be practicable or running three times the number of halls, which would have been extremely expensive. In the event, it was agreed with WRAP that the number of respondents for each product would still be sufficiently large to identify key differences between product types and to draw broader conclusions about more general questions across the entire sample. It does have to be acknowledged, however, that the small samples did make analysis of some aspects of the data frustrating, with sample sizes becoming too small to determine trends with any surety for most sub-groups. Which dates to test? In assessing understanding of guidance dates, we looked to test reactions to certain products either before, on, or past their ‘best before’, ‘display until’ and ‘sell by’ dates. Since ‘use by’ dates are designed to provide guidance on product safety (as opposed to quality), it was decided not to provide consumers with products which were past their ‘use by’ dates. The rationale behind this was that there would be little scope for WRAP or others to encourage eating products which had gone beyond their ‘use by’ date without running the risk of compromising public health. We could, of course, have tested products that were both within and beyond their ‘use by’ dates, but this would have meant using a far greater number of props, which would have presented difficulties both in terms of length and design of questionnaire and prop storage. The trouble with sample products In the section on pack sizing we were looking to test opinions and reactions to the size of packs currently available as well as the potential market for smaller portion sizes. This involved presenting participants with ‘regular’ sized versions of products and asking them to consider any issues they have faced in relation to the portion size as well as how much, if anything they would be willing to pay for a smaller pack size.


Subsequent to the London tests, interviewers emphasised to respondents that although they had been presented with an example of a product in each case, they were not considering that particular brand, but rather the size of the product (i.e. they were not being asked about their experience of buying and eating a loaf of Hovis sliced white bread, but simply their experience of that size of pre-packed bread of any variety). With hindsight, however, it might have been better to have tried to ‘unbrand’ the examples used in this section of the questionnaire, since there was a tendency for respondents to relate back to the brands in front of them in spite of the clear guidance to the contrary. Product sourcing and storage The sourcing of most of the products was subcontracted by Brook Lyndhurst to Logistic Solutions, a Northampton-based specialist in buying and storing produce for this type of research (http://www.logsol.net/). A number of issues relating to the sourcing and storage of the props are outlined in the following paragraphs. Brand or retailer discretion in date labelling The types of dates shown on packs are determined by both the type of food and the brand3. The amount of time left between the date of packing and the guidance date is also frequently at the discretion of the brand or retailer who is likely to consider issues like product quality (i.e. if a particular batch of salad is of slightly lower quality, the guidance dates are likely to be sooner) and brand image alongside safety. This can mean that two almost identical products, arriving on the shelves of two different supermarkets on the same day, can display significantly different guidance dates. It was therefore important to spend time finding the particular products that would meet our requirements. This was further complicated by the fact that we sought to get both a cross section of food to reflect the types of products that are thrown away, and ‘middling’ brands that would not put off either poorer or better off shoppers. Branding As highlighted above, we do acknowledge that there are issues with using particular brands or products due to their public image. Without a larger study allowing a number of brands of the same product to be presented to participants, however, these issues are unavoidable. We therefore felt that using ‘middling’ brands (where possible) was the best way to proceed. For the purposes of this report, ‘middling brands’ refers to any products that are either own brand products from Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons or Asda or popular branded products. We excluded any ‘economy’ or ‘premium’ range products where possible. Sourcing ‘middling’ brands was achieved in all cases other than the ready meals as these were a last minute substitution for another product4. Batching There were other challenges for products produced and labelled in batches, in that the dates appearing on produce do not necessarily roll sequentially day by day. Rather, especially in the case of products with a long shelf life, all of the packs produced in, say, one week, might bear the same guidance dates.

3 For example, the particular brand of yoghurt that we used had a ‘best before’ date whereas others have ‘use by’ dates.

4 They were sourced from the ‘ASDA smart price’ range.

http://www.logsol.net/


Sourcing products with a very long shelf life was also fairly problematic, as the list of products to be tested was only finalised 3-4 weeks before the first hall tests and then amended in the week preceding the London halls. This made finding some items – cheese in particular – extremely difficult. Taken together, these issues made the acquisition of a sufficient number of products with the required date codes very difficult and we ultimately had to allow some flexibility around the exact dates displayed on the props in order to carry out the tests at all. Table 3 is a summary of the relationship between the dates displayed on the products used and the timing of each hall test. Table 3: Products used for the guidance date testing, including how many days there were before or after the primary date on the pack on the date of the hall test on which they were used Primary date type Additional Date London Sheffield Birmingham

Salad Use by 0 1 1 or 2

Ready Meal Use by Display until 1 2 2

Cut fruit Use by 0 1 1

Ham Use by 0 1 1

Potatoes Best before Display until -1 -2 -2

Tomatoes Best before Display until -2 -1 -1

Chicken Use by Display until 1 0 0

Cheese Best before -1 -2 -2

Milk Use by Display until 0 0 0

Bread Best before -1 -1 -1

Yoghurt Best before -2 -1 -1

Eggs Best before Display until -1 -2 -2

Venues The halls themselves were booked by ICM, which was subcontracted by Brook Lyndhurst to run the fieldwork. ICM also took responsibility for ensuring that there was sufficient chilled storage capacity in each venue to keep produce in a reasonable condition. In a number of cases, this meant hiring additional fridges, which also raised questions about ease of access to the venues. Once the decision had been taken not to test defective packaging, which would have required far larger numbers of refrigerated products to be stored at the venues, this became less of an issue. In most cases a number of examples of each product were sent to each hall so that items that were beginning to suffer over the course of a day – whether through deterioration in food quality due to not being refrigerated or simply through being handled by large numbers of people – could be replaced. Questionnaire design and use Since much of this approach was uncharted territory, we decided to run the two London halls a week earlier than the others in order to identify and rectify any problems (before the remaining tests). In the event, this proved to be extremely useful, allowing us to make key amendments both to the questionnaire itself (particularly the routing instructions for interviewers) and to the way that interviewers were briefed. Despite the observational nature of the research, some parts of the study required people to consider the issues in unusual ways. For instance, having given an indication of whether or not they felt a product was okay to eat, respondents were then asked what the date would have had to have been in order for their answer to have been different. From the outset, it was clear that we needed to phrase questions relating to these fairly difficult concepts in ways that were easy to understand. This required careful consideration in the design of the questionnaire and re-evaluation of the phrasing throughout the process to ensure that questions were as clear as possible.


Secondly, during the London tests, it became clear that there was some difficulty in getting respondents to differentiate between being in home and being in store (perhaps because many were recruited while shopping). In order to alleviate this problem, interviewers were instructed to remind participants on a number of occasions of the need to view the products as if they were at home and this was incorporated into the pre-test briefing for the subsequent halls. Thirdly, the study demanded a fairly complex routing structure. The nature of the questionnaire meant that whether or not certain questions were asked depended on the answers to one or more previous questions. This was unavoidable, but confusing for some of the interviewers who were used to more straightforward studies. A potential solution to this problem would be to use CAPI (computer assisted personal interviewing) in similar situations going forward, which automatically determines the routing depending on responses entered. This is a more expensive solution however, as the CAPI terminals have to be leased, programmed and dispatched, and it can also present problems for certain interviewers who are not familiar with the technology. As it was, the formatting of the questionnaire was revised between the London and Birmingham & Sheffield halls to make following the routing more straightforward. It is worth noting that under normal circumstances, ICM fieldwork agents carry out hall tests independently. By ensuring that Brook Lyndhurst staff were present on the ground at each of the halls, we were able to pick up on and overcome many of the problems that emerged in relation to routing and interviewer understanding early on, as well as providing fully informed and extensive pre-test briefings. Finally, the fact that the order in which products were presented to participants was rotated created some problems in punching the data. This resulted in the data taking a lot longer to be processed than anticipated, and delayed the reporting of the project.


4.0 Results - general As outlined earlier, a total of 418 respondents were interviewed across all of the six hall tests. The final sample breakdown was as follows:

Table 4: Breakdown of results by key socio-demographic groups Demographic group Subdivisions Number of interviews achieved (% of total sample)

Gender Male

Female

102 (24%)

316 (76%)

Age 16-34

35-44

55+

157 (38%)

159 (38%)

101 (24%)

Socio-economic group AB

C1C2

DE

96 (23%)

246 (59%)

68 (17%)

Number of people in

household

1

2

3-4

5+

109 (26%)

134 (32%)

139 (33%)

34 (8%)

Children in household 0

1-2

3+

312 (77%)

88 (21%)

7 (2%)

Since food guidance dates and portion sizes are two distinct issues, they are dealt with separately in the following two sections. 4.1 Sub-group analysis As already noted, while the overall sample size is reasonably large, analysing the results by sub-groups is problematic, since we can end up talking about numbers of 30 respondents or fewer. Unless there are particularly marked differences between sub-groups therefore, we have not made note of them in this report. 4.2 Analysis by location It is also worth bearing in mind that, in all but a few cases, we have excluded differences between hall test locations. For a simpler project, this sort of comparison would be valid, but in our view, differences in the teams of interviewers, in the briefings provided to the interviewers and in the case of the two London locations, in the routing guidance used in the questionnaire mean that some differences are inevitable. Since very few of these differences are particularly significant, we have omitted them from this analysis.


5.0 Results - Food guidance date labelling During this section of the interviews, we wanted to gauge consumer understanding of date labelling on food packaging. The hypothesis was that there would be some level of confusion over what the different date label types mean and that this would affect how people use those dates. In particular, previous research suggested that the public is uncertain about the differences between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates, and that these might therefore be used incorrectly, causing edible food to be thrown away prematurely. As outlined in Section 3.0, participants were presented with four different products, either:

chicken, salad, milk and bread; or

ready meal, cut fruit, eggs and potatoes; or

ham, tomatoes, cheese and yoghurt.

They were then asked a series of questions about whether they thought the products were suitable to eat and what they understood by the date labels. The full questionnaire used in the second round of halls (including the changes in routing introduced after the London tests) is provided in Appendix 3. 5.1 The first judgement: is a product okay to eat? All 418 participants were presented with 4 products (giving a total of 1,672 responses) and asked to state whether or not they thought each product was okay to eat/drink. The way these questions were phrased was important – we wanted to understand how people make judgements about whether a product needs to be thrown away, which meant that questions like, “Is this safe to eat?” were not appropriate, since they excluded concerns about quality. Broader questions like, “Would you eat this product?” were equally problematic, since people were likely to answer on the basis of whether they liked the product as opposed to whether it should be thrown away or not. The eventual wording tried to find a compromise between these two extremes by asking whether the product was “okay to eat”, although we acknowledge that this could still be considered to be leading people towards a consideration of food safety above all else. In 80% of cases, the product was felt to be okay, but there was considerable variation in responses according to the product being tested, as shown in the table below. It should be noted that the percentages relate to those who were asked about that particular product (i.e. roughly a third), rather than the full sample.


Table 5: Percentage of respondents looking at a given product who felt the product was okay to eat/drink Days left to run until ‘best

before’/ ‘use by’ date

Percentage saying product okay to eat

Date type Additional date London Sheffield Birmingham

Salad 93 Use by 0 1 1/2

Ready Meal 92 Use by Display until 1 2 2

Cut fruit 92 Use by 0 1 1

Ham 91 Use by 0 1 1

Potatoes 88 Best before Display until -1 -2 -2

Tomatoes 85 Best before Display until -2 -1 -1

Chicken 82 Use by Display until 1 0 0

Cheese 75 Best before -1 -2 -2

Milk 74 Use by Display until 0 0 0

Bread 74 Best before -1 -1 -1

Yoghurt 59 Best before -2 -1 -1

Eggs 55 Best before Display until -1 -2 -2

Salad, ready meals, cut fruit and ham were the most likely to be accepted as okay to eat. These high rates of acceptance are perhaps largely due to the fact that the food guidance dates (in all cases ‘use by’) were after the date of the hall test – an early indication that dates do play a significant part in consumer decision-making. Eggs and yoghurt were by far the most likely products to be rejected as ‘not okay’ to eat. On the face of it, it might seem that this was simply down to these products being ‘out of date’ – again supporting the idea that consumers pay a great deal of attention to guidance dates. Nevertheless, two points are important here: 1 The dates on these packs were ‘best before’ dates, not ‘use by’ dates, so the products were technically

okay to eat5. If people are paying so much attention to dates on pack, why did they get this wrong? Is it because, as suggested by earlier research, consumers confuse ‘best before’ dates with ‘use by’ dates and assume they relate to safety, not quality?

2 Although almost half of those asked about eggs and yoghurt said these products were not okay to eat, other products that were similarly beyond their ‘best before’ dates fared much better. In the case of potatoes, for instance, 88% of those asked said the product was okay to eat, despite the packs being either one day or, in four out of the six hall tests, two days beyond their ‘best before’. Why would consumers be confused about the meaning of ‘best before’ dates in the case of yoghurt and eggs, but apparently interpret them correctly in the case of potatoes? Is it possible that, in the case of all three product types, it was something about the individual products that informed the eventual decision about whether or not they were okay to consume, rather than the type of date?

However, this question did provide further evidence that consumers are paying attention to the date, if not the type of date. Four of the six items carrying ‘use by’ dates made up the four products that fared best in this question (i.e. that respondents were most willing to eat). Given the fact that all six ‘use by’ products were within their guidance dates (in contrast to the ‘best before’ products), this might suggest that dates do have a bearing in some way.

5 The one exception to this was eggs, which the Food Standards Agency recommends should not be eaten after their best before date.


The most convincing conclusion is therefore that consumers mesh the advice provided by guidance dates with their own views on the nature of the products before them in order to come to a decision about whether or not they are edible. If this is true, is it possible that it does not matter whether or not consumers understand the meaning of the guidance dates they are exposed to, since it is more important to them to have any date than it is to have a date of a particular kind? That is to say, if they feel they need a date to decide whether or not something may harm them, then they use whatever date is to hand. 5.2 Respondent behaviour & decision making All products We are able to get a better idea of how often dates are used to judge whether products are okay to eat through follow-up questions on whether dates had been used in respondents’ decision making and if so, how. In the majority of cases (73%), respondents said that they based their decision (at least in part) on the date displayed on the packaging. The majority of those who said they checked the date on the product claimed they referred to the ‘use by’ date (43% of the total sample) and a smaller proportion the ‘best before’ date (24% of the total sample). Given that there were equal numbers of products with ‘best before’ dates and ‘use by’ dates, does this mean that people pay attention to ‘use by’ dates in a way that they do not for ‘best before’? Probably not.

Table 6: Claimed reasons for decision about whether products were ‘okay to eat’. (percentage of overall responses) Reason Percentage of responses

Look 49%

Feel 9%

Smell 3%

Perceived risk of food (e.g. salmonella in chicken or eggs). 1%

Ingredients 1%

Date on pack 73%

Use by 43%

Best before 24%

Sell by 5%

Display until 4%

The date (unspecified) 1%

Base | 1,672 If we break down the responses according to the type of product the figures are revealing.

Table 7: Claims about date used to make decision against actual dates on pack Dates actually displayed on these products Type of date

looked at (claimed)

Number of occasions respondent claimed to use this type of date Use by Best before Display until Sell by

Use by 707 577 130 350 0

Best before 406 13 393 181 0

Sell by 83 42 41 44 0

Display until 62 38 24 58 0


Three numbers stand out from this table: 1 In almost 20% of the cases in which respondents claimed to have referred to a ‘use by’ date (or 130 of

707 responses), the product in question did not carry a ‘use by’ date. This might be explained, at least in part, by the fact that ‘use by’ date was listed first on the questionnaire, raising the possibility that interviewers simply ticked the first option in those cases where respondents were not specific about the type of date used rather than, as Brook Lyndhurst had intended, probing the interviewee further.

2 In 83 cases, respondents claimed to have used a ‘sell by’ date, despite the fact that none of the

products tested carried one. It seems that in these cases at least (7% of the total responses that claimed to refer to the on-pack date in some way), ‘sell by’ was used as a ‘catch-all’ phrase to refer to any type of date. It is possible that some of those cases in which respondents claimed to have used a ‘use by’ date when there was no such date on the pack may have been caused by the same phenomenon.

3 In almost all of the cases in which respondents claimed to have used a ‘best before date’, that sort of

date was actually on the pack. At the very least, this suggests that ‘best before date’ has not entered common parlance as a ‘catch all’ in the way that ‘sell by’ seems to have.

The overall results for this question – and the correlation between the number of respondents who claimed they looked at ‘best before’ dates and the number of those products that actually carried ‘best before’ dates in particular – might suggest that consumers are distinguishing between the different types of dates, apparently contradicting the evidence presented in Section 5.1. We do have to remember though that interviewers were instructed to ‘probe fully’ on this question, in order to help us identify any respondents who were using ‘display until’ dates to determine whether or not a product was okay to eat. An unwanted outcome of this may have been to force respondents who would not ordinarily have noticed what sort of date they had looked at to give an answer – possibly by referring back to whatever was on the pack. Nevertheless, we can say that certain date types are more part of the everyday vernacular, and others less so. Product-specific responses There were some differences in how respondents claimed to have come to their decisions for different products, highlighting once again the fact that the use of food guidance dates is at least partly determined by the type of product. As shown in the chart below, for example, when faced with yoghurt, milk or eggs, respondents were much more likely to base their decision on the date than they were for other products. For fruit and vegetables (and tomatoes and potatoes in particular), respondents were more likely to rely on how the product looked. What is perhaps most interesting about this is that whether or not people used a date seems to have had very little to do with whether or not that date was a ‘best before’ or a ‘use by’. If we look at one end of the scale, we have yoghurt (best before), milk (use by), eggs (best before) and chicken (use by). At the other, we have cut fruit (use by), potatoes (best before) and tomatoes (best before). If we look at the results across all of the products though, we find that in 69% of those cases involving ‘best before’ products (a base of 831 responses), the respondent claimed to look at the date, compared with 77% of those cases involving ‘use by’ (from a base of 841). Although this is not a huge difference, this seems to contradict what we’ve just said about the type of date not mattering much to consumers. The fact is however that this trend is not reproduced across every ‘best before’ product reveals a deeper level of complexity. Respondents may have looked for the date in only 45% of cases for tomatoes, but they looked at it in 90% of cases for yoghurts and both of these products carried ‘best before’ dates.


Figure 1: Reasons for decision, by product

Base | 135 to 142 This is the most convincing evidence so far that consumers’ use of dates is determined by one or more attributes of particular products, rather than the type of date. Although the authors’ speculation, it seems likely that this is a combination of perceptions of the amount of harm an out of date item of a particular product type could do and, more importantly, how comfortable the consumer is that they can judge whether or not that product is off without resorting to an on-pack date. In support of this latter point, it is noticeable that consumers are more likely to check the date on products for which signs of decay are ‘hidden’. While yoghurt, eggs, chicken, ham and ready meals (5 of the 6 products for which respondents were most likely to refer to a date) may all show signs of deterioration, these signs are far less noticeable than they are with tomatoes, potatoes or cut fruit and often do not involve obvious changes in the look of the product. The fact that people checked the dates less frequently on ‘best before’ products than they did on ‘use by’ products therefore seems likely to have had more to do with their perception of how safe the ‘best before’ products were and less to do with what type of date was on the pack per se. This is not particularly surprising news – products carry ‘best before’ dates because they are judged to be safe enough to leave consumers to make up their own minds. Perhaps what is interesting though, is the number of these supposedly safe products that consumers themselves do not feel equipped to decide about without reverting to the guidance date. If respondents felt they had to look for the date in 90% of cases when shown yoghurts and 82% of cases when show eggs, is ‘best before’ really the best sort of date for these products? Observed behaviour We felt that it was important not to rely solely on participants’ claims about the way they decided whether products were okay to eat, so interviewers were asked to observe respondents’ behaviour while they thought about this question.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Yoghurt Milk Eggs Chicken Ham Readymeal

Cheese Salad Bread Cut fruit Potatoes Tomatoes

Date on pack Look Smell Perceived risk of food (e.g. salmonella in chicken or eggs). Other


The table below shows interviewers’ observations against claimed behaviour. The similarity between claimed and observed behaviour is reassuring. These similarities were also echoed when we break down the observed results by product type.

Table 8: Claimed decision making against observed decision making Behaviour Percentage of responses

(observed) Percentage of responses (claimed)

Respondent appears to look for dates 69 73

Respondent only looks at product 40 49

Respondent squeezes pack 10 9

Respondent attempts to sniff pack 2 3

Base | 1,672 responses 5.3 Dates: establishing the boundaries of acceptability In order to gain an deeper understanding of how consumers use food guidance dates to judge when food should or shouldn’t be consumed, respondents were questioned on what might be termed their ‘boundaries of acceptability’. Those who claimed they had used a date on pack to decide that a given product was okay to eat were asked what the date would had to have been for them to consider it not okay. Conversely, those who claimed to have used the date to decide that a product was not okay were asked what date would have had to have been displayed to persuade them that it was okay. It is worth noting that interviewees found these two questions extremely difficult to understand, with many interpreting the questions in reverse. Since even the project team struggled at times in communicating some of these ideas, we have spelled the exact questions and their potential misinterpretation below: A: Respondent judged food to be okay Questionnaire wording: What would the date on this pack have had to be for you to think it was not okay to eat today? (i.e. a date in the past) Misinterpretation: On what date would you not to have eaten this? (i.e. a date in the future) B: Respondent judged food not to be okay Questionnaire wording: What would the date on this pack have to be for you to think it was okay to eat today? (i.e. a date in the future) Misinterpretation: On what date would you have eaten this? (i.e. a date in the past) With hindsight, these questions would almost certainly have been easier for respondents to understand had we asked them in the latter form. Again, running the London halls as pilots allowed us to pick up on this issue early on and improve the briefings for interviewers in later tests. Results – Question A – food judged to be okay The most responses received were from people saying the product date would have had to have been “yesterday” (26% of responses) or “two days ago” (16% of responses) for it not to be okay to eat. One in ten responses said the product date would have had to have been “tomorrow”. Even in the case of use by dates, this would be considered extremely cautious as products were often ‘in date’ by a day if not more. For products with best before dates, it would make even less sense. Whilst it is not outside the realms of responsibility that some respondents consider either safety or quality so important that they discard products a day before they reach their guidance date, it seems likely that at least some of these answers were due to a misunderstanding of the original question, as outlined above.


When we look at responses by individual product, as displayed in the chart below, there at first appears to be a relatively high level of understanding of the different date types. For all the products with ‘use by dates’ displayed (particularly chicken, but also ready meals, cut fruit, ham, salad and milk), the majority of respondents were not willing to consider consumption of these products more than one day beyond the date on the pack. In contrast, for those products with ‘best before’ dates, notably cheese, eggs and yoghurt, but also tomatoes, potatoes, and bread, the majority of responses suggested respondents would consume these products two days or more beyond the date on the pack. On further reflection, it seems unlikely that this trend has an awful lot to do with respondents’ understanding of the terms ‘use by’ and ‘best before’. If this were the case, then people would be unlikely to consider eating food that was even a day beyond its use by date. Rather, as we have seen earlier, these results seem to be born of people’s residual sense both of which foods are less risky and which foods show signs of decay most clearly. Indeed, it is likely to be these same considerations that caused low risk, high decay visibility foods to be given best before dates rather than use by in the first place. Figure 2: Date that would need to appear on label for the product to be considered not okay to eat

In general, women tended to be more cautious than men on how much leeway they would accept, with 46% saying that the food would not be okay to eat if it displayed a date of ‘yesterday’ or after (i.e. the day before the test or prior to it), compared with 38% for men Results – Question B – food judged not to be okay The most popular response when people were asked what the date would have had to have been in order for them to consider the product okay to eat was ‘today’ (41%), while a quarter of responses were ‘in 2 days’ time’ showing the cautiousness that some feel.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Chicken Ready

meal Cut

fruit Ham Salad Milk Bread Yoghurt Eggs Cheese Potatoes Tomatoes

(Base - 98)

(Base -101)

(Base - 89)

(Base -101)

(Base -96)

(Base -91)

(Base -61)

(Base -69)

(Base -57)

(Base -66)

(Base - 58)

(Base -48)

Yesterday or after 2 days ago or before Would not depend on date Others


The chart below shows responses for those products with a base figure of higher than 20 (i.e. those products which more than 20 people felt wouldn’t be safe to eat). It suggests that respondents are most cautious about milk, with 10 out of 26 responses suggesting respondents would only drink it if the date displayed was two days after the date of the hall test. In contrast, for all products other than milk (i.e. all those displaying best before dates), the most popular response was ‘today’. Figure 3: Date that would need to appear on label for the product to be considered okay to eat

5.4 Concerns about the date Once we had established whether participants had rejected a product on the basis of its date, it was important to get a sense of how that date was interpreted – i.e. did the date displayed make people think that the product would be unsafe to consume or simply be of too poor quality? Respondents who felt the product they were presented with was not okay to eat/drink and who had used the date in their decision, were therefore asked what concerned them about the date. As shown in the table below, the base for this question was very low - only five products had more than 20 responses.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Milk Bread Cheese Yoghurt Eggs

(Base - 26) (Base - 23) (Base - 30) (Base - 48) (Base - 48)

In 2 days' time Tomorrow Today Yesterday 2 or more days ago Others


Table 9: Concern about the date Base Date

Type Product may not be safe to eat

Product will not be of a good enough quality to eat

Others

Eggs 48 BB (DU) 41 (85%) 4 (8%) 16 (33%)

Yoghurt 48 BB 33 (69%) 7 (15%) 17 (35%)

Cheese 30 BB 20 (67%) 8 (27%) 6 (20%)

Milk 26 UB (DU) 10 (38%) 12 (46%) 8 (31%)

Bread 22 BB 2 (9%) 15 (68%) 6 (27%)

Potatoes 12 BB (DU) 4 N/A 5 N/A 7 N/A

Tomatoes 12 BB (DU) 5 N/A 7 N/A 2 N/A

Chicken 9 UB (DU) 4 N/A 3 N/A 4 N/A

Ham 4 UB 3 N/A 0 N/A 1 N/A

Cut fruit 3 UB 1 N/A 2 N/A 1 N/A

Salad 1 UB - N/A - N/A 1 N/A

Ready meal - UB (DU) - N/A - N/A - N/A

Small samples sizes notwithstanding, these data echo the finding from earlier questions that consumers’ perceptions about the safety of particular products seem be used in conjunction with the dates themselves. Thus, while those expressing a concern in relation to the best before date on eggs are worried about its implications for product safety, those worried about the same sort of date on a loaf of bread seem more likely to be concerned with quality. 5.5 Those who did not use the date… Where respondents did not use food guidance dates in their decision for a particular product, we felt that it was important to get a sense of whether this was always the case or whether there were certain circumstances when they would do so. Over half (56%) of the respondents who did not use the date in this instance said that they do sometimes look at the date on that type of product before deciding whether it is okay to eat/drink. However, this picture varied considerably by product, as shown in the chart below (the chart only includes products for which over 30 respondents said they had not used the date to judge whether they were okay to eat). It shows that potatoes, bread and tomatoes are the products for which respondents are least likely to check for guidance dates, though it should be emphasised that, once again, the sample sizes here are small. That said, this finding is broadly in keeping with expectations, since respondents had shown a similar autonomy in relation to bread, tomatoes and potatoes on previous questions.


Figure 4: Proportion ever using (/never using) date labels on product where date not used on this occasion

Those respondents who said that they would sometimes check dates on products were asked why they hadn’t done so on this occasion. The majority of responses (77%) were related to product appearance, with most of these (63%) being that the product looked okay or bad, and a much smaller proportion (12%) saying the product felt okay/wrong. Again, the sample here was fairly small so these figures should be used as a guide only, but it nevertheless implies once again that dates are used in conjunction with consumers’ existing knowledge and their own judgement. 5.6 Impact of open packaging For all products apart from milk and bread, respondents were asked if having the pack already open would influence their decision on whether or not the contents were okay to eat6. Overall, 43% of respondents said that the pack being open would influence their decision, with a few key differences found between products. As shown in the chart below, respondents were more likely to say that an open pack would influence their decision for ready meals and yoghurts, but least likely to do so for potatoes, eggs and tomatoes. This seems to relate primarily to perceptions of how quickly products would deteriorate when exposed to air.

6 Milk and bread were not included in this section as they were already open when presented to participants in order to reflect the normal state in which consumers would be likely to find these products in the home.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Cut fruit Ready meal Cheese Salad Tomatoes Bread Potatoes

(Base - 41) (Base - 31) (Base - 34) (Base - 37) (Base - 71) (Base - 41) (Base - 63)

Yes No Don't know


Figure 5: Percentage of respondents per product whose decision on whether or not that product was okay to eat would be affected by an open pack

Base | 137 to 143 Those who said that an opened pack would influence them gave a wide range of answers as to how, though none of these gained a great deal of support. The most popular responses, however, were:

“Would not eat it”

“Not fresh/gone off”

“Would look at it”

The base figures for responses about each product were too low for differences between different groups of respondents to be quoted with any confidence as to their significance.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Ready meal

Yoghurt Chicken Ham Cut fruit Salad Cheese Tomatoes Eggs Potatoes

Yes No Don't know


5.7 General questions Following the discussions about the date labelling on specific products, respondents were asked a series of more general questions about how they use the dates on packaging and what they understand by the different terms, in order to get a broader sense of how they use food guidance dates. Freezing of products The majority (70%) of respondents say they look at the date on a product when deciding whether or not it can be frozen, with women more likely to do so than men (73% compared with 60%). Respondents from socio-economic group DE (84%) were also more likely to look at the date on a pack prior to freezing than others (64% - AB, 68% - C1C2). Since many of those within the DE banding are retirees, it is perhaps unsurprising that the older the respondent, the more likely they are to use the date, as shown in the chart below. Figure 6: Use of date in decision on whether to freeze a product, by age

Respondents who did sometimes look at the date prior to freezing were asked whether the type of date shown would affect their decision about whether or not to freeze a product. As shown in the table below, the majority thought that the type of date would affect the decision. As shown in the table below, of those who said that the type of date was not important, the largest proportion said that it just had to be before any date on the pack with a slightly smaller proportion saying it had to be before or ON any date on the pack. There was a sense from some interviewers that responses to this question were sometimes somewhat arbitrary, probing behaviours that for most people were instinctive and rarely approached systematically and that these two options may have been pretty much interchangeable. Similarly, many respondents failed to distinguish between ‘before’ any date on a pack and ‘on or before’ any date on pack, so the difference between those categories should not be attributed particular importance.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

16 - 34 35 - 54 55+

(Base - 156) (Base - 158) (Base - 101)

Yes No I don't freeze any food Don't know


Table 10: Percentage for whom the type of date affects decision on whether to freeze a product Yes 58%

No 42%

It just has to be before any date on the pack 20%

It just has to be before OR ON any date on the pack 15%

So long as it's not more than a day past the date 6%

Depends on the type of product 1%

Would use by the 'use by' date *

Don't know *

Base | 285 Those that said the type of date did matter were then asked how it mattered. With hindsight, the phrasing of this question may have been rather confusing, since we only distinguished between those who would have frozen a product before its guidance date, before or on its guidance date, or one or two days after its guidance date. What it would have been more useful to know, from WRAP’s perspective, is how many days before or past a date consumers considered a product okay to freeze. The phrasing of the question also failed to accurately capture whether or not people used some dates and not others when freezing a product – that is to say, there was an implicit assumption that anyone who said the type of date did matter would always the date but vary that use depending on what type of date it was. In Figure 7, we have combined those respondents who said the product would have to be before the date with those that said it would have to be before or on the date. We have also added up those who said the product could be either one or two days after the date. The implication of the results – if we assume that the question was asked and understood correctly – is that those people who said the type of date did matter actually didn’t distinguish between ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates at all. If anything, the results were counter intuitive, since the percentage of respondents who would freeze the product before or on the date actually increased slightly for ‘use by’ products when compared with ‘best before’ products, while the number who insisted on the date being before the date on the pack fell for ‘use by’. Furthermore, the percentage of respondents who were willing to freeze products after the ‘sell by’ or ‘display until’ date was still very low, which contradicts the findings for ‘use by’ and ‘best before’: if someone is willing to freeze a product before or on its ‘use by’ date, we might expect them to be comfortable freezing it after its ‘display until’ date, which is almost always at least two days earlier. This further suggests that this question was poorly understood by both interviewers and respondents. Figure 7: Date that would need to appear on a pack for a product to be okay to freeze

Base | 108 - 136

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

100

If date is a best

before

If date is a use

by

If dateis a sell

by ordisplay

until

No more than two days past dateNo more than one day past dateBefore or on date

Before date


5.8 Understanding of guidance dates One of the main issues that this research aims to unpick is the possibility that some consumers may be confused about the meaning and purpose of the different sorts of guidance dates. The previous questions have already established that guidance dates – in conjunction with subjective perceptions of product safety – play a major role in influencing decisions about what is eaten and what is thrown away. There have also been signs that the confusion about the meaning of these dates is very real or rather that the intended meaning does not necessarily reflect how the dates are used. However, more specific questions relating to what the public understands by each type of date were needed to really get to grips with the extent of any confusion and misinterpretation. General understanding Considerable thought was given to how to approach questions about understanding of different label types. Other research, such as that conducted by the FSA, has attempted to fit interviewee responses into a predefined list of possible answers, but changes in that list of answers between surveys has seen a significant and unexpected shift in the results, suggesting that the way the question is phrased can skew the outcome. Because of this, we chose to ask open ended questions, accepting that making sense of these answers would be as much a qualitative exercise as a quantitative one. In order to make sense of the responses, answers were broken down into common themes. Thus, anyone who explicitly linked a type of date to, say, product safety, was counted in the ‘safety’ category. Some respondents included what amounted to two definitions in their response – for instance: “[It means] the product will be nicest before the date but for me it [also] means safety.” In such circumstances, the responses were multi-coded – in the case of this example, under both “safety” and “quality”. There were also other answers that did not explicitly refer to safety or quality, but which could be interpreted as such, particularly those that said simply, “you have to use it before that date”. The sense of compulsion conveyed suggested a link to safety concerns, but since this was not actually stated, these answers were coded separately. Our findings suggest that, on the whole, ‘best before’ dates are (correctly) seen as relating to quality; ‘sell by’ and ‘display until’ dates are (again correctly) seen as providing guidance to retailers; and ‘use by’ dates are more likely to be seen as relating to food safety, or, where respondents were not so explicit, providing more formal guidance on how consumers should behave and on the deterioration of the product. It does, however, have to be acknowledged that by asking someone what is meant by, say, a ‘best before date’, you are inviting them to consider this question in a way they wouldn’t otherwise have cause to. After all, the meaning of ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ is pretty self-explanatory and it seems likely that any confusion is caused by people applying a ‘catch all’ definition of guidance dates to all date types without giving any consideration to the exact wording. Explicitly asking them to consider the meaning of each in turn artificially focuses their attention on that wording. It is therefore even more telling that the data show some clear pockets of confusion. Almost three respondents in ten (27%) see ‘best before’ dates as being linked explicitly to product safety for example, and conversely, ‘use by’ dates were seen as an indication of quality by a fifth of respondents (21%). As noted above, some of these answers may have referred to both safety and quality, but even those cases hardly suggest consumers have a clear understanding of the meaning of the dates.


Table 11: Understanding of different date types When you see the words [date type] what does it mean to you? (multi-coded)

Best Before

Use By Sell By Display until

Safety 27% 52% 6% 5%

Quality 65% 21% 20% 17%

Guidance to retailers 3% 3% 81% 85%

General guidance to consumers 15% 33% 9% 6%

Use before / don’t use after 7% 24% 3% 2%

Other 15% 24% 5% 7%

Would go off / deteriorates after date 10% 19% 2% 2%

Base | All respondents (418) Best before As outlined above, best before dates are primarily seen as providing guidance on product quality, but are also seen by a significant minority as giving an indication of safety. Although caution is called for in reading too much into these results because of the small number of respondents falling into each category, general understanding of this type of date does seem to vary according to socio-demographics. Whereas only 21% of ABs (20 out of 94 answering this question) and 26% of C1C2s (62 out of 242) gave responses specifically relating to product safety when asked what ‘best before’ dates meant to them, this was extended to 37% of DEs (25 of 67). Conversely, whereas 74% of ABs (70 out of 94) and 67% of C1C2s (162 out of 242) gave responses relating to quality, this was only 45% (30 out of 67) in the case of DEs. The actual responses given provide greater insight into interpretations of ‘best before’ dates. As already mentioned, many of the responses gathered pertained to product quality, and the following quotes are typical of what was said: “The condition of [the] product is at its best until that date” “Probably not going to be as good afterwards” “Nicest before then but will be edible after that” “It's best eaten before that date, after that would start to deteriorate” However, the responses also illustrate that not everyone understands ‘best before’ dates in the way that they are intended7. In particular, a sizable minority feel that a ‘best before’ date provides safety information: “Don't eat it after that date” “Must eat before that date” “It’s the last date [it’s] advisable to use” “Best used before the date. If you use it after that you get food poisoning” “Goes off after that date - not fit to eat” The way in which people use their own judgement to interpret dates is also evident in the responses recorded. Not all those using their judgement reach the same conclusions though – some err on the side of caution, whilst others are less worried.

7 http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/foodlabels/asksamlabelterms/


“[It means] the product will be nicest before the date but for me it [also] means safety - bacteria growth would be too high [for it] to be safe to eat.” “[It’s] probably safe to eat after the date but I probably wouldn't.” “[It means] that they're not suitable to eat after that date - if it's dairy you've got to be careful with salmonella.” “I mostly ignore them on bread / cheese / veg. I make my own assessment on look and smell.” “Ideally, use it by that date because it may go off after that - but I use my own judgement.” “It could mean it won't be fit to eat after then if [it’s] meat but if [it’s] cake or bread it might be stale but edible.” Some of these answers are particularly interesting because they suggest that those respondents who rejected ‘best before’ products on safety grounds may fully understand the meaning of a ‘best before’ date, but knowingly treat it as a ‘use by’ date instead. If the food waste generated by these individuals in this way is to be reduced, they need to be persuaded to trust their own instincts on ‘best before’ products, rather than being told what ‘best before’ means. Amongst those who understand that ‘best before’ dates are only an indication of quality, the responses also revealed differing interpretations of how long the products can be left before there is an issue of safety: “It tastes better on that day [but] you can still eat it a couple of days after; it would be safe” “Can still eat [it] after [the] date. [It] depends on what product. Up to five days probably” “It would last a week or two - would be able to eat it week or two later.” Use by Understanding of ‘use by’ dates seems less clear than that of the other dates monitored. Although most respondents seemed to perceive ‘use by’ dates as offering relatively strict guidance – answering that you “have to use [the product] before the date / cannot use it after the date” (22%); “should use it before the date / shouldn’t use it after the date” (17%); or answer with a sweeping “use before / not after” (24%) or “eat before / not after” (3%), these are not responses that necessarily make the distinction between safety and quality clear. That said, issues around safety do arguably carry a greater sense of urgency and importance than those relating to quality and so most of these answers, though they have been coded separately, could reasonably be assumed to relate to safety, despite any quibbles we might have as methodological purists. Overall, those coding the responses for ICM deemed that 52% of the definitions offered for ‘use by’ dates came under the “safety” banner, but this does not include, for example, the 19% of responses coded as “would go off / deteriorate after the date” as this could apply to either safety or quality[5]. It may well be that in gauging consumer perception of ‘use by’ dates, the actual language used is a more useful indicator than how the responses have been coded. The following comments are typical of the answers given: “Should be eaten by the date - it goes off after that date” “Have to use by this date” “Got to be eaten by that date” Certainly, there is a recurring theme of safety: “You shouldn't eat it at all after it’s gone past this date. It's probably something that goes off and can make you ill”

[5] Please note that the use of ‘Net’ or ‘Summary’ codes such as “Safety” make it possible to ascertain the proportion of people providing an answer under that category (i.e. even if the respondent in question says several things that are coded under the ‘Net’ or ‘Summary’ code, he or she is not counted more than once). It is possible for a respondent to provide a response that may be classified under several ‘Net’ or ‘Summary’ codes however, so in this case a respondent may be coded as understanding use by dates both to have safety implications and to say the product would go off/ deteriorate after the use by date.


“That it shouldn't be used after that date it may make you poorly” However, some responses also underline that the line between safety and quality is somewhat blurred: “Must use [it] by that date – otherwise [it’s] not fresh” “Should not be used after that date; it loses its goodness” Although some perceive a clear difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates, the initial hypothesis that differences between the two are not obvious to all consumers is supported here: “[It’s] more prescriptive – [you] should eat before [the] date because it might not be possible to see by looking or smelling that it was off” “[It] seems a bit more clearer than best by [sic], but I can't see the words make any difference” “Same thing - really no difference between the two” “Same thing, eat it or chuck it out” “Same as 'best before' - it should be used around that time, give or take a couple of days / a warning to start using it before it goes off” It is also interesting to note that despite the fact it would be difficult for government to encourage such behaviour, consumers do use their own judgement in interpreting how to use the guidance offered by ‘use by’ dates – just as they do with ‘best before’ dates. As noted previously, this is not something that was explored in this research and respondents were not exposed to products that were past their ‘use by’ dates but, nevertheless, some of the responses here make it obvious that this is happening. “After that it's not a good idea to use - but I would for a couple of days” “[...] It would depend on what it looked like and what it was. Meat or dairy I would be more wary of” “Use it within a day or two of the date - it might be off or go mouldy” “Not safe to keep too long” “Same again - just a target. Can eat it as long as it looks alright” There is some suggestion here that younger people are more likely to see ‘use by’ dates as providing safety guidance. This gives no indication of whether products are then thrown away when they reach their ‘use by’ date, but nonetheless some 61% of those aged 16-34 (93 out of 153 answering the question), gave responses pertaining to product safety, compared to 46% of those aged 35-54 (73 out of 157) and 47% of those aged 55+ (47 out of 99). Sell by A large majority of people interviewed see ‘sell by’ dates as providing guidance to retailers (81%), with almost half saying that a shop has to sell a product by the ‘sell by’ date (49%). Sample sizes are small but even so, it seems that people in socio-economic groups AB might be particularly likely to give an answer which falls into this category - 91% (86 of 95) gave this response, while this is less the case for those in socio-economic groups DE (71%, or 49 of the 63).[6] The issue of product quality is also something that comes to mind relatively frequently when people see ‘sell by’ dates on packs – one in five (20%) mention quality - and this is fairly consistent across socio-demographic groups. A very small minority (6%) mention ‘sell by’ dates having a link to product safety. It is worth noting though that none of them are in the socio-economic classification AB - this again gives the impression that there may be a link between the ‘correct’ knowledge and/or interpretation of date labelling and socio-economic status.

[6] 81% of those in groups C1C2 said it provided guidance to retailers (191 out of 237 giving a response).


Again, the verbatim answers are helpful in illustrating the types of response given. The following quotes were typical and illustrate the extent of recognition that ‘sell by’ dates provide guidance to retailers: “The shop must sell it by that date” “Must be off shelf on or before [the date]” “It’s the recommendation to the supplier or supermarket that they shouldn't have it on the shelves after that date.” Although many talk about ‘sell by’ dates only in the context of providing instruction to the retailer, others do see them as being consumer-facing and they are sometimes also seen as providing guidance to both retailers and consumers: “If it's past the date don't buy it” “That's the date when it needs to be off the shelves. It's consumerism. I don't think it probably has to be but it's to keep the customer buying so even if half is left you'll go buy another pack” In particular, some see ‘sell by’ dates as a reflection of product quality – either because they think the product should not be eaten after the ‘sell by’ date, or because they think the date is designed to give consumers the chance to take the product home and prepare it before it goes off. This is a useful illustration of the differing role that ‘sell by’ dates have, depending on consumers’ understanding of them, and their potential to cause wastage of edible food: “To sell and eat by a certain date or [they] cannot guarantee freshness. It is edible up to that date” “If it's got a sell by date on it, it's no good after that date. It would be poor quality, not fresh” “The shop keeper has to sell it by this date because it will deteriorate after” “Still get time to store it at home and eat it within a reasonable time. Within a week perhaps as [you] do a weekly shop” “Shouldn't be on the shelf after that because [they are] supposed to give you enough time to eat it, not just straight away” It is obvious that there is a certain amount of confusion in relation to ‘sell by’ dates then, and certainly, some of the people interviewed failed to distinguish between the different date types: “Exactly the same again [as best before], just changing the words around” “Same as 'best before' ” For others however, the main interest in ‘sell by’ dates seems to be reduced prices and the potential for getting a bargain: “That the shop shouldn't have it on the shelf to sell unless they have greatly reduced it” “The date that the shop it has to sell it by or put it on special offer” “It’s a guide to the shop when they should reduce them to clear them” Display Until In general terms, ‘display until’ dates are seen in a very similar light to ‘sell by’ dates: most respondents perceive them as providing guidance to retailers (85%), while a notable minority (17%) state that they provide an indication of quality. Interestingly though, whereas for ‘sell by’ dates respondents believe the retailer has to sell the product by the date in question, with ‘display until’ dates, the emphasis is on taking the product off the shelf after the date displayed – this is mentioned by 60% of respondents. Although it is difficult to know whether these results would be replicated if this study were to be repeated on a larger scale8, there is an indication that those most likely to say that ‘display until’ dates relate to 8 Due to small sample sizes at the sub-group level


safety may be those in socio-economic groups DE (6 out of the 60 who provided a response to this question). Conversely, those most likely to believe that the food would still be ‘safe to eat a few days after the date but just would not be as fresh’ (or coded under that category) seem to be in socio-economic groups AB (19%)9, again suggesting a link between more accurate understanding of dates and higher levels of education and/or affluence. As commented above, the most commonly given answers were that ‘display until’ either means “the same as ‘sell by’”, or that it is a specific instruction to the retailer that a product should be taken off the shelves on the date displayed: “Same as 'sell by'” “The shop can only display it until that date” “Again that's for the supermarket it's out until that date then they'll throw them” As with other dates though, some respondents also assume that ‘display until’ provides an indication of quality – either for the supermarket, or for the consumer: “Again, it's control of food quality in supermarket” “Only stays on a shelf for that time - not so good after” “That's its shelf life. I would consider you need to eat it before that date” The degree to which respondents view ‘display until’ dates as being relevant to them varied considerably: “The supermarket are [sic] offering it for sale until then but maybe there's some life in it before it deteriorates” “[It’s] the date they have to get it off their shelves. You can eat it two or three days after that date” “The shop has to get rid of it by that date. You could eat it up to one week after” Interestingly, a small minority also make an explicit link between ‘display until’ guidance and waste: “Again supermarket[s] should not have it out. [With] potatoes - any later than display until you are unlikely to finish pack before best before date.” 5.9 Guidance dates: the detail We have already acknowledged that it is difficult to analyse responses by sub-groups to any depth because of concerns about sample sizes, but it is nevertheless the case that some of the telling details in this research are only revealed when we carry out such an analysis. This section therefore looks at the results of some of the key questions asked about guidance dates on a product by product basis, namely:

how many respondents said the product was not okay to eat;

of those, how many used the date to come to this decision; and

of those, how many were concerned about safety and how many were concerned about quality.

By examining the responses for each product in this way, we are able to group them into four categories: 1 Low waste – those products for which consumer use and understanding of guidance dates does not

seem to contribute significantly to food waste. 2 Quality sensitive – those products for which concerns over quality seem to be linked with guidance

dates, possibly contributing to food waste

9 Compared to just 7% or 4 out of 60 responses in groups DE


3 Safety sensitive – those products for which concerns over safety seem to be linked with guidance dates, possibly contributing to food waste

4 Variable sensitivity – those products for which concerns over safety are linked with guidance dates for some consumers, while others use the dates to determine product quality

Low waste

Table 12: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Salad

Salad

Primary date type

Average days remaining before guidance date10

% saying product was okay to eat

Key figures11

Use by 0.83 93 Base: 143 Not okay to eat: 9 Not okay and used the date: 2

Base | 143 Relatively few people used the date to decide that salad was not okay to eat. It is unclear whether or not this would have been different if the salad had passed its ‘use by’ date; the fact that 70% of respondents asked about salad said they used the look of the product to inform their decision making and 72% said they made use of the date on the pack suggests that many people use a combination of the date and their own judgement about product appearance when deciding whether salad is okay to eat. The key finding to take from the table above is that very few people are discarding salad early because they are misinterpreting or misusing the date on the pack12.

Table 13: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level – Cut fruit

Cut fruit

Primary date type

Average days remaining before guidance date


Key figures


Base | 137 The case with cut fruit is very similar to that for salad, even down to the way in which people said they reached their decision; 59% saying they used the look of the product and 68% saying they used the date, again indicative of a significant number of consumers using a combination of the look and the date. As with salad, the key point seems to be that very few people are discarding this sort of product before it passes its ‘use by’ date because of the date.

10 Because the days remaining (or passed) before (or after) the guidance date varied between products and between halls, we have taken the average for each product.

11 Note that because the sample sizes are so small, we have expressed these figures in terms of absolute numbers rather than percentages of responses

12 It is also worth bearing in mind that even those two people who said they had used the date in reaching their decision that the salad was not okay to eat (i.e. they would have discarded it before its ‘use by’ date) may have used the look of the product in conjunction with the date to reach this decision.


Table 14: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level – Ready meals

Ready meals

Primary date type



Key figures


Base | 137 The story with ready meals is very similar to salad and cut fruit, with one notable exception. Far fewer respondents (39% of those asked about ready meals) said they used the product’s appearance to judge whether or not it was okay to eat, suggesting that consumers are far more dependent on the guidance date when deciding whether or not to throw away ready meals. In part this may be because ready meals may contain meat and therefore be viewed as being potentially more harmful; in part it may be because the cardboard wrap obscures the product itself. Again, the key finding it that very few respondents seem to be discarding ready meals before their ‘use by’ date, though it should be noted that in four of the six hall tests (the two in Birmingham and the two in Sheffield), there were still two days remaining on the ready meals. Of those in Birmingham and Sheffield who said the ready meal was okay to eat and based this decision on the date on the pack, 15% claimed they would not have eaten it if the date had been ‘tomorrow’ – i.e. one day before the ‘use by’ date. This suggests that the number discarding the ready meals incorrectly on the basis of the ‘use by’ date may have been slightly higher if the date had been later, although in both cases we are only talking about five or six respondents, so making firm conclusions of this kind is difficult.

Table 15: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Ham

Ham

Primary date type



Key figures

Use by 0.67 91 Base: 139 Not okay to eat: 13 Not okay and used the date: 5 Not okay, used the date and concerned about safety: 3

Base | 139 Ham differs slightly from the other products in this category, since slightly more people used the date to decide that the product was not okay to eat. Even if only five people in every 140 use the ‘use by’ date to decide that ham that is okay to eat should be thrown away, this could generate significant volumes of food waste if repeated across the entire population. The numbers here are obviously far too small to be able to invoke this scenario with any degree of certainty, but it is nevertheless worth looking more closely at these five people and in particular, what it was about the date on the pack that made them feel the ham was not okay to eat. In three of the five cases, the respondents said they were concerned about safety, suggesting that they were sufficiently suspicious of ham to feel they needed a buffer before the guidance date to be guaranteed the product was safe13.

13 Neither of the other two respondents who rejected the ham because of the date gave a reason


There is, therefore, some potential for WRAP to reduce food waste by emphasising that ‘use by’ dates can be trusted – and by clarifying the fact that the cut off is technically midnight on the night of the date on the pack. Quality sensitive

Table 16: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Bread

Bread

Primary date type



Key figures

Best before -1 74 Base: 141 Not okay to eat: 29 Not okay + used the date: 24 Not okay + date + concerned about quality: 18 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 2

Base | 141 On the one hand, the results for bread are comforting. Almost three quarters of people asked about this product said it was okay to eat, despite being beyond its ‘best before’ date. On the other hand, however, of the 24 people who said it was not okay to eat and based this decision, at least in part, on the date on the pack, 18 were concerned about the quality of the product. In a sense, it might have been more straightforward for WRAP had these people been concerned about safety, suggesting that ‘best before’ dates were simply being misinterpreted and that educating people that products were safe to eat beyond their ‘best before’ date could yield significant reductions in food waste. If people are using the ‘best before’ date to discard bread because they are concerned about its quality – that is to say, they do not want to eat it if it is not at its ‘best’ – the ‘problem’ becomes one of lifestyle and attitudes rather than of understanding. Persuading people to eat what they may see as stale bread could be a challenging task. There may be a case for asking whether products like bread, which have a relatively short shelf life, really need a ‘best before’ date at all, or whether by using a ‘use by’ instead, those consumers who currently use the date to judge quality might keep the product for a day or two longer. This does, of course, have to be balanced with the concern that people who strictly adhere to the different types of date and who may currently keep bread for longer than would be allowed were a ‘use by’ date applied would throw out their bread earlier than normal. It is difficult to tell from our results how significant this side effect could be, although the fact that 35% of the 100 people who said the bread was okay to eat claimed to have used the ‘best before’ date does provide some indication. Safety sensitive

Table 17: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Chicken

Chicken

Primary date type



Key figures

Use by 0.33 82 Base: 142 Not okay to eat: 21 Not okay + used the date: 10 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 10

Base | 142


Although only 21 (18%) of those asked about chicken felt the product was not okay to eat, a significant number of these (10) used the date to reach this decision and all of these were concerned about safety. Since all of the chicken was within its ‘use by’ date, these people seem to be throwing away meat that is perfectly safe to eat. Although a relatively small group in percentage terms, applied to the entire UK population, this could be making a significant contribution to food waste. Ensuring that people understand that ‘use by’ products are okay to eat right up until midnight on the date on the pack could help to reduce this. It is also possible that being this specific about the role of midnight relative to the ‘use by’ date could highlight to some consumers the fact that ‘use by’ products are likely to be okay to eat the day after the date, since common sense suggests a product is not perfectly safe one minute and then unsafe the next14. It is worth noting that 12 of those who said the chicken was not okay to eat said they used the appearance of the product in making that decision. This is, perhaps, equally concerned for WRAP and the Food Standards Agency, since it suggests that these people are ignoring dates in favour of their own judgement for a product that is potentially extremely dangerous. It is unclear whether or not this trend would have been replicated had the chicken passed its ‘use by’ date.

Table 18: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Milk

Milk

Primary date type



Key figures

Use by 0 74 Base: 142 Not okay to eat: 30 Not okay + used the date: 28 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 10 Not okay + date + concerned about quality: 12

Base | 142 Milk was alone among the ‘use by’ products tested since every bottle shown to respondents was on the actual ‘use by’ date. This is, in fact, something of a hindrance, since it becomes difficult to tell whether or not those who said the milk was not okay to drink did so because they misunderstood the ‘use by’ date (i.e. they did not realise that ‘use by’ products are safe until midnight on the date on the pack) or because they were misusing the date (i.e. they simply do not drink milk that is on its ‘use by’ date irrespective of whether they understand the precise meaning of that date). The fact that two thirds of those who rejected the milk because of the date said they would not have done so if the date had been either “tomorrow” or “the day after tomorrow” suggests that, whatever their reasoning, the numbers discarding the milk would have been significantly lower if the hall tests had taken place only a day or two earlier. This does seem to reinforce the case for emphasising to consumers that the cut off for ‘use by’ products is midnight on the evening of the date. At first glance it might seem that milk might have been better placed in the ‘variable sensitivity’ category, since 12 of the 28 people who used the date to decide that the milk was not okay to drink did so on the grounds of quality. However, we have included it in the ‘safety sensitive’ category because there is very little scope for WRAP to persuade consumers that milk will be of a good quality right up to midnight on its ‘use by’ date. Rather, our own personal experience tells us that, even with a fridge at the correct temperature, milk can sometimes begin to smell ‘bad’ before the ‘use by’ date. It therefore seems sensible to include milk in this category on the grounds that the greatest gains may be made in food waste terms by emphasising the safety cut off implied by ‘use by’ dates rather than targeting concerns about quality.

14 Of course, this could also work in reverse, depending on the degree to which an individual has faith in ‘official’ guidance dates


Table 19: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Yoghurt

Yoghurt

Primary date type



Key figures

Best before -1.33 59 Base: 139 Not okay to eat: 53 Not okay + used the date: 49 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 33 Not okay + date + concerned about quality: 10

Base | 139 Firstly, it should be noted that in addition to the 33 people who said that the yoghurt was not okay to eat on safety grounds because it had passed its ‘best before’ date, an additional seven people rejected it after looking at the date because of “the type of food”, suggesting that these too were concerned about safety. Secondly, we must remember that the yoghurts used were rather unusual in carrying ‘best before’ dates, since most yoghurts on the market currently carry ‘use by’ dates. It may be that this has influenced public perceptions of the safety of yoghurt and consumers who are used to thinking of yoghurts being unsafe after their ‘use by’ date could not trust the same product beyond its ‘best before’ date. Whether the ‘problem’ for WRAP is therefore poor consumer understanding of labelling or inconsistent product labelling is open to question. Either way, the yoghurt results seem to support the idea that for some products, consumers judge any date rather than paying attention to whether they are reading a ‘best before’ or a ‘use by’. Encouraging them to differentiate between the two types of date might, in this case, help to reduce the amount of food wasted, but given that yoghurts with ‘best before’ dates are not that common, the relative gains to be made would be unlikely to be significant. As with those who were concerned about safety, it is difficult to tell whether or not those respondents that used the date to decide the yoghurt was not okay to eat and rejected it because of concerns over quality did so because the date was a ‘best before’ date or simply because they do not see any yoghurt that has passed its date as being of sufficiently good quality. Either way, improving their understanding of the meaning of ‘best before’ seems unlikely to help if, as with bread, they do not want to eat anything that may not be of the highest quality.

Table 20: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Eggs

Eggs

Primary date type



Key figures

Best before -1.67 55 Base: 137 Not okay to eat: 58 Not okay + used the date: 53 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 41

Base | 137 Eggs, as was noted earlier, are a unique case in this project, since the FSA recommends that consumers should not eat eggs that are out of date, irrespective of the fact that they carry ‘best before’ dates rather than ‘use by’. From a public health point of view it is perhaps a little worrying that 55% of those asked about the eggs, which were all a day or two past their ‘best before’ dates, said they were okay to eat.


It is again difficult to tell whether or not the 41 people who rejected the eggs because they felt they were unsafe beyond their ‘best before’ date were unsure of the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates or were simply checking for any date. If WRAP is to reduce the amount of eggs thrown away unnecessarily, a first step seems to be to replace the ‘best before’ date on eggs with a ‘use by’. As things stand, eggs may be undermining faith in the entire system by making out of date ‘best before’ products seem unsafe.

Table 21: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Cheese

Cheese

Primary date type



Key figures

Best before -1.67 75 Base: 139 Not okay to eat: 32 Not okay + used the date: 32 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 20

Base | 139 Of all the products in this category, cheese – alongside chicken – offers perhaps the greatest potential for WRAP to make advances, since there is considerable evidence of consumers either misunderstanding or misusing guidance dates. While in the case of chicken this involved over-zealous interpretation of ‘use by’ dates, in the case of cheese, a significant number of respondents rejected the product because of safety concerns, despite it being only a few days beyond its ‘best before’ date. Since cheese has a relatively long shelf life, it seems reasonable to assume that these people – 20 of the 139 asked about the product – are throwing away perfectly edible cheese. Persuading these consumers that products are safe to eat beyond their ‘best before’ dates could therefore significantly reduce food waste. Variable sensitivity

Table 22: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Primary date type



Key figures

Best before -1.33 85 Base: 138 Not okay to eat: 19 Not okay + used the date: 12 Not okay + date + concerned about quality: 7 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 5

Base | 138 While the primary driver for those who rejected the tomatoes seems to have been the date on the pack, these respondents were fairly split between those concerned about safety and those concerned about quality. As with bread, those concerned about safety could conceivably be encouraged to waste less food if they could be persuaded that ‘best before’ products were okay to eat some time after the date on the pack. Those concerned about quality are more problematic because again, perceptions of quality are related to lifestyles and attitudes. Arguably tomatoes (and vegetables in general) offer greater scope for improvement here since tomatoes, unlike bread, are often quite fresh for some time beyond their ‘best before’ date.


Table 23: Detailed analysis relating to dates at a product level - Potatoes

Potatoes

Primary date type



Key figures

Best before -1.67 88 Base: 137 Not okay to eat: 17 Not okay + used the date: 12 Not okay + date + concerned about quality: 7 Not okay + date + concerned about safety: 4

Base | 137 Potatoes are to all intents and purposes almost identical to tomatoes, although those consumers who are concerned about quality pose a greater potential target because of the long shelf life of potatoes. Although the numbers are small for both tomatoes and potatoes, if even 5% of consumers are discarding potatoes within days of their ‘best before’ date because of concerns either about quality or safety, this could be contributing significantly to food waste. Improving consumers’ understanding of (and faith in) both the dates and the products could therefore be expected to help reduce food waste.


6.0 Results - pack sizes The second section of the hall tests tested the potential demand for reduced pack sizes. Previous research has suggested that some consumers - particularly those living on their own or in smaller households - find standard portion sizes too big, causing surplus food to be thrown away unnecessarily. Even when smaller sizes are available, people are sometimes drawn to the larger packs because their lower price per unit of volume is seen as offering better value. The purpose of this research, therefore, is to get a sense of what the demand for smaller portion sizes might be, what sort of size portions consumers would like for certain key products and what they would pay for them. As described in Section 3, respondents were presented with two products (bread plus either salad, pasta sauce or ham) and asked questions relating to the pack size of those types of product (particularly following the experience of the London Halls it was made clear to all participants that we were not talking about the specific brand being used as an example). 6.1 Shopping habits There was little sense in asking interviewees about their desire to see smaller portion sizes for products they never buy, so the first question in this part of the questionnaire asked respondents whether they usually bought the products being tested. As shown in the table below, bread was the most commonly purchased product, while the least commonly purchased were packs of salad.

Table 24: Purchase of products Base Yes No

Bread 418 76% 24%

Ham 139 68% 32%

Pasta sauce 138 66% 34%

Salad 141 58% 42%

The proportion of those buying these products is perhaps surprisingly low (e.g. those for bread), reflecting the difficulties interviewers experienced in persuading respondents to consider the products generically as opposed to the particular examples in front of them. 6.2 Portion size issues All respondents were asked whether or not portion sizes had ever been an issue for them in relation to each product. This might have seemed counter-intuitive for those who had already said they didn’t normally buy a given product, but we needed to rule out the possibility that they weren’t buying it because of portion concerns. On average across all of the products, 30% of respondents said that the portion sizes available had been an issue for them at some point in the past. This was more or less consistent across product types.


Table 25: Issues with portion size Average Ham Salad Pasta sauce Bread

Yes (have had an issue with portion sizes) 30% 35% 34% 30% 28%

No (have not had an issue with portion sizes) 69% 65% 64% 69% 72%

Don't know 1% 1% 2% 1% *

Base 836 139 141 138 418

Respondents for whom portion size had been an issue on a given product were asked why. In nine out of ten cases, respondents said the pack size had been too big, with 64% of these saying they couldn’t eat it all and 32% either saying they simply don’t like wasting food, or that it lost its freshness before they could finish it. Just 12% said they had ever had an issue with pack sizes being too small. As shown in the chart below, respondents were far less likely to have had an issue with the pack being too big for pasta sauce than for the other products (in particular bread and ham) and conversely, more respondents claimed to have been frustrated because pasta sauce portions were too small. The base for this is too small to allow us to determine with any certainty whether or not those feeling that portion sizes are too small were primarily from larger households. As shown in Table 26, the reasons given for finding a pack size to be too big did not vary hugely between products, although a greater proportion of respondents said that bread loses its freshness before they can eat it, than for other products. Figure 8: Percentage of respondents who had found pack size to be an issue with a given product for whom the pack had either been too large or too small

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Bread Ham Salad Pasta sauce

(Base - 114) (Base - 48) (Base - 47) (Base - 41)

Pack size too big Pack size too small


Table 26: Reasons why pack sizes had been an issue (percentage of respondents for each given product - multicoded)

All

p

rod

uct

s

Bre

ad

Sala

d

Past

a

sau

ce

Ham

Too big 90 98 91 61 96

I can't eat it all 64 64 70 44 75

I don't like wasting food 32 38 23 15 40

It's expensive to buy in big quantities 6 5 6 5 6

It loses its freshness before I can finish it 32 46 28 10 19

I can't carry it <1 1 0 0 0

I don't have space to store it 2 4 2 0 0

It goes off 19 23 15 7 23

Have had to eat more of it (pack too big) <1 0 0 2 0

Too small 12 4 11 39 8

It's more expensive to buy in small packs 4 2 2 12 4

I have to buy several packs of it 6 1 4 27 2

I have to buy several packs and then end up throwing some away 1 0 0 2 0

It runs out too quickly 3 1 2 2 2

Don't like freezing food (pack too big) <1 1 4 0 0

Base 250 114 47 41 48

6.3 Consideration of smaller packs Respondents were asked if they would consider buying the products tested in smaller packs. It should be noted that those who had said that they didn’t normally buy this sort of product and for whom portion sizes in that product had never been a problem were excluded from this question. As a result, there were 647 responses to this question and in over half (57%) of them, interviewees said that they would consider buying the product in question in a smaller size, suggesting that there could be fairly high demand for smaller packs on some products. As would be expected, given the results of the previous question, respondents were less likely to consider buying a smaller jar of pasta sauce than any other product.

Table 27: Percentage of responses where interviewee would consider buying product in a smaller pack

Total Ham Salad Bread Pasta sauce

Yes 57% 65% 63% 57% 41%

No 40% 33% 34% 40% 56%

It depends 3% 2% 2% 3% 3%

Base (no. of responses) 647 104 93 352 99

Respondents who said they would consider a smaller pack were asked why. The table below shows that, overall, the most popular response was, “so that I would be able to eat it all”. Interestingly, being able to


finish the pack (and thus minimise waste) was less of an issue when it came to bread, where people were much more likely to be concerned about freshness. Although the responses for pasta sauce showed that there was nominally less concern about having to throw so much away than there was with other products, we should be careful not to read too much into this. A higher percentage of those that said they would consider buying smaller portions of pasta sauce said they would do so because they would be able to eat it all (and thus wouldn’t have to throw so much away) than for any other product bar salad.

Table 28: Reasons for considering smaller portions (percentage of responses per product)

Total Bread Salad Pasta sauce Ham

I would be able to eat it all 55 47 66 66 60

It would mean I didn't have to throw so much away 44 43 51 29 47

It would always be fresh 36 43 29 17 32

It would be less expensive to buy smaller quantities 5 7 5 2 3

It would be easier to carry 2 2 2 * 1

It would be easier to store 2 3 3 2 *

Other 9 10 3 15 7

Base (responses) 366 198 59 41 68

There was very little difference in the reasons for considering smaller packs between the different demographic groups, with one exception: age. Younger respondents were more likely than those aged 55+ to say that it was so they wouldn’t have to throw so much away – 51% of responses from 16-34 age group gave this reason, compared with 32% in the 55+ group. This may be because older people are better able to find different ways of coping with large pack sizes (such as making effective use of freezers or cooking with leftovers). Respondents who said they would not consider buying a smaller pack were also asked why and the results are show in Table 29.

Table 29: Reasons for not considering smaller portions (percentage of responses for each product)

Total Bread Salad Pasta sauce Ham

I would have to buy several packs of it 37 36 33 32 50

It’s more expensive to buy 28 35 23 21 16

I need more in one go than is in one pack

28 24 33 32 34

Wrong size / I like the larger size 10 7 20 15 3

I freeze what I don’t use 5 8 - 2 -

I don’t ever buy this product 3 3 - 4 6

Other 4 1 13 6 9

Base (responses) 253 138 30 53 32


The largest proportion of respondents said that it was because it would mean buying several packs of the same product. The second most popular reason given was price, however – an early indication that while demand for smaller sizes is fairly high, the tendency of smaller portions to be more expensive per unit of volume appears to put some people off. Although base sizes are low, this seems particularly notable for bread. 6.4 Reservations While it is clear from earlier responses that there is a theoretical demand for smaller portion sizes, it was also important to find out if there are any barriers to purchase for those who would consider these smaller sizes. Of the total (836) responses generated across the products tested in this section, in 367 cases (44%) the respondent said they would consider buying a smaller size. Those respondents who answered in this way were also asked if they had any reservations about buying smaller portions. Just under one in five (19%) said they did have reservations, with the main one being the price per unit of volume, as shown in the table below:

Table 30: Reservations about buying smaller portions Response Percentage of products tested in which

response was given

Yes 19%

The price per unit of volume 15%

The packaging 3%

It would run out/ I wouldn't have enough in one go 2%

I don't like opening lots of packs *

I would probably freeze what I didn't use *

No 81%

Base | 367 responses This chimes with the concerns of those who said they would not consider buying smaller packs because of price. 6.5 Pricing All respondents were told the price of the normal sized pack they had in front of them and asked how much they would expect to pay for a product half the size. The chart below shows the mean price respondents expected to pay, contrasted with the price of the normal-sized product. Overall, respondents expected to pay just over half for a pack half the size, though for pasta sauce this figure was closer to two-thirds (despite the fact that – or perhaps explaining why - this was the product least likely to be considered for a smaller pack size).


Figure 9: Mean price respondents would expect to pay for packs half the size of the ones used in the tests, compared with the full size pack prices

In order to fully make sense of this, however, we need to look at these figures in more detail. We have therefore grouped responses for each product into 10 pence bands and then calculated the percentage of responses falling into each band. The results are shown in Figure 10 below. One thing jumps out immediately. For three of the products – ham, pasta sauce and bread – many of the respondents gave figures bunched towards the lower end of the range of responses, but there was a ‘tail’ of respondents saying they would pay more. Salad is the notable exception, with the peak occurring towards the top end of the range. To put this more simply – more respondents seem to expect to pay more for salad. Prices given for pasta sauce ranged fell within a range of only 70p, compared with 80p for bread, 110p for ham and 140p for salad. Looking at the chart, however, it becomes obvious that although the range of responses for pasta sauce may have been relatively narrow, respondents were divided about the price they might be expected to pay within that range. This contrasts with bread, salad and ham, all of which show a discernable peak, albeit less pronounced in the case of bread. Making any sense of these results remains difficult, however, because each product has a different standard price. In order to try and make sense of this, Figure 1 converts the actual prices quoted by respondents into a percentage of the standard pack price.

0.62 0.590.60

1.201.05

1.000.95

0.76

0.500.53

1.90

£0.00

£0.20

£0.40

£0.60

£0.80

£1.00

£1.20

£1.40

£1.60

£1.80

£2.00

Salad Pasta sauce Bread Ham

Respondents' expectations of what a half size pack will cost Exactly half the full size price Full size price


Figure 10: Amount respondents would expect to pay for half size packs

Figure 11: Amount respondents would expect to pay for a half-sized version of each tested product, expressed as a percentage of a standard price product


It seems, therefore, that most people expect to pay slightly more than half price for a product have the size of a regular one. This at least demonstrates that consumers are used to smaller packs costing more per unit of volume. What really interested us, however, was how much people would be willing to pay, rather than how much they expect to be charged. Asking people how much they will pay for a hypothetical product can lead to over claiming by respondents, but we nevertheless considered it worthwhile asking a secondary question on willingness to pay. Figure 12 shows the results to the question, “What is the most you would be willing to pay for a pack half the size?” as percentages of the standard size pack. Figure 12: Amount respondents claimed they would be willing to pay for a half-sized version of each tested product, expressed as a percentage of a standard price product

There is a discernible trait visible, with a larger number of high amounts given for most products than we saw when respondents were asked how much they would expect to pay. This is further demonstrated if we take the average of the price for each product – still expressed as a percentage of the price of a standard-sized product, as shown in Table 31 below. There is remarkable consistency in the case of three of the products – bread, pasta sauce and ham – with respondents indicating a willingness to pay around 15% more than half the price of a standard pack; around about 5% more than they would expect to be charged. The notable exception to this is salad, where the difference between what people expect to pay and what they are willing to pay is negligible. Quite why this would be is unclear, but salad was by far the most expensive item tested and, arguably, the most ‘luxurious’ product. Is it possible that people are willing to pay more per unit of volume for smaller sizes of cheaper products, but have less tolerance for this sort of premium when it comes to more expensive items? It is worth referring back to Table 30 here, which suggested that more respondents were concerned about the price of smaller packs for bread – a relatively cheap product – than for any other item. What these two items have in common is a short shelf life which may mean that those who buy these products regularly will be more conscious of higher prices than they might with products that they have to buy less of, less often, such as pasta sauce and ham.


Table 31: Respondents’ average expectations of the cost of a half-sized product compared with the amount they claim they would be willing to pay for one, expressed as a percentage of the price of a standard-sized product Product Expect to pay

(% of standard size price)

Willing to pay

(% of standard size price)

Bread 59.4 64.2

Pasta sauce 60.5 65

Salad 50.2 51

Ham 58.8 64.3

We must also remember that some interviewees who were generally supportive of the idea of smaller pack sizes had only moments earlier expressed concerns about the price of smaller packs. Are people really going to pay a 15% premium for small portions, as they seem to have suggested with regards to bread, pasta sauce and ham? It may be that only full market testing will tell, but at the very least, these figures suggest that some consumers may be willing to pay more for less. Sample sizes are too small for us to be able to identify particular groups that might be more willing to pay for smaller packs. 6.6 Most appropriate pack size Respondents were asked what sized pack they would find most appropriate for each product. The chart below shows that a large proportion of consumers felt that for most products, the most appropriate pack sizes were smaller than the standard ones they had in front of them. In these cases, respondents generally thought a pack of around half size would be best. There were some key differences between the products. For example, more respondents thought that the appropriate size for a loaf of bread was over 500g (42%)15 than those who thought that it should be around half the size (351-400g – 36%). With hindsight, our weight scale should have extended beyond 500g to allow people to suggest loaves of bread that were only slightly smaller than a standard loaf. We did add in a ‘standard size’ option after the two London tests16 and 36% of the Sheffield respondents opted for this choice. Interestingly though, there was no drop in the numbers of people selecting the “500g or more” option between London and Sheffield, while the Birmingham tests actually showed the highest percentage choosing that option, with only eight percent saying they liked the standard size, perhaps suggesting that interviewers in Birmingham had not noticed this option. Given this inconsistency, it is hard to tell whether people who selected the ‘over 500g’ option were advocating standard loaves or loaves that were slightly smaller or larger than that. Similarly, with pasta sauce, a relatively high proportion of respondents thought that the most appropriate size was around the normal size (301-350g – 28%). This is in contrast to the results for salad and ham where much larger proportions of respondents thought half-size packs were more appropriate than the pack size they were presented with. We can also see from the chart that, in line with previous results, demand for smaller packs of pasta sauce seemed lower than for other products.

15 Normal size, 800g

16 Note that in Figure 13, respondents who selected ‘standard size’ have been counted under the weight band accommodating the standard sized product for all but bread, where they are included in the “more than 500g” band.


Figure 13: Most appropriate pack size

6.7 General questions Following the questions about specific product types, respondents were asked more general questions about portion sizes in order to capture feedback on any further issues that weren’t related to the products used in the hall tests. Over half (54%) of the participants said they could remember having wanted to buy food in a pack size that was not available. Respondents in certain demographic groups were more likely to say this than others, notably those living on their own (63% compared with 44% for those in two person households). Respondents who said that they threw away a lot of uneaten food were also more likely to remember not being able to buy food in the pack size they wanted than those that didn’t (60% compared with 46% who did not remember wanting to do this). Those who claimed they had wanted to buy food in a pack size that was not available were asked what kinds of food this applied to. As shown in the chart below, a wide range of foods was mentioned, with the most common being bread/cakes (31%), cooked meats (26%), fresh meat (25%) and cheese (20%). Figure 14: Products for which respondents remembered struggling to find the right portion size at some point in the past

Base | 219 The same respondents were asked what made them want to buy the products they had quoted in a different size. As shown in the table below, the vast majority (80%) said it was because the pack was too big (with 49% saying they can’t eat it all, 44% that they don’t like wasting food and 27% that it loses its freshness), and 27% because it was too small (12% said they would have to buy several packs, 10% just wanted more).

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

0 -

50g

51 -

100

g

101

- 15

0g

151

- 20

0g

201

- 25

0g

251

- 30

0g

301

- 35

0g

351

- 40

0g

401

- 45

0g

451

- 50

0g

Mor

e th

an

500g

Oth

er

resp

onse

s

Don

't k

now

Bread (Normal size - 800g) (Base - 359) Salad (Normal size - 200g) (Base - 112) Pasta sauce (Normal size - 350g) (Base - 107) Ham (Normal size - 250g) (Base - 120)


Table 32: Reasons for wanting a different size portion Too big 80%

I can't eat it all 49%

I don't like wasting food 44%

It loses its freshness before I can finish it 27%

It's expensive to buy in big quantities 7%

Other 2%

Too small 27%

I have to buy several packs of it 12%

I want more of the product 10%

It’s more expensive to buy in smaller packs 6%

Other 4%

Other – depends on how many I’m cooking for 1%

Base | 218 Respondents who had not ever wanted to buy a product in a quantity that was not available were asked if they could see the value in having other sizes available. A large majority (78%) said that they could, though with hindsight this question could have been better worded, since ‘value’ may have been interpreted in financial terms by some respondents, rather than meaning ‘use’ as intended.


7.0 Conclusions and recommendations Throughout this report we have been careful to note the limitations of the data. We knew from the outset that hall tests were a best fit (given the objectives and the budget), rather than an ideal solution and that the sample size would not be sufficient to allow for detailed analysis by product and sub-group. We were advised that depending on the size of the hall and the number of interviewers used, hall tests might be expected to secure between 70 and 80 interviews in a day. We also knew however that the amount of ground we needed to cover would make limiting the length of the questionnaire extremely challenging. In the event, each interview took closer to 20 minutes than the target of 15 and in these circumstances, the eventual sample of 418 respondents (a fraction under 70 per hall) was very positive. We felt in designing this project (and still believe) that a sample of this size would be adequate to draw robust conclusions from headline data. Moreover, we also felt that some of the product-specific and sub-group analysis could provide useful detail. The following section pulls together the headline results and the detail to give a sense of where WRAP and other agencies might usefully focus their attention to help reduce food waste. 7.1 Guidance dates Use of dates Perhaps the most striking finding from the research is the degree to which people claim to make use of guidance dates in some form or other. On almost three quarters of the occasions on which respondents were presented with a product, they said they used an on-pack date to decide whether or not it was okay to consume. In addition, in over half of the remaining cases, respondents said they would sometimes have referred to a guidance date for the product in question, but had simply not felt the need to in this instance. Understanding of dates For the products tested in the halls, 43% of those who used a date said they had referred to a ‘use by’ date, 24% to a ‘best before’ date, 5% to a ‘sell by’ date and 4% to a ‘display until’ date. This is instructive on two counts. Firstly, none of the products used in the halls carried a ‘sell by’ date, suggesting that those who used this term were using it generically to refer to any date label and therefore did not distinguish between date types. Secondly, there were equal numbers of products carrying ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates in the tests, which makes the greater number of respondents referring to the ‘use by’ date look a little odd. Again, this suggests that terms act as ‘catch all’ phrases for consumers and that ‘use by’ is one such catch all phrase. It should be stressed that the key here is not always poor understanding of what the different types of dates actually mean. When respondents were asked to define the different sorts of dates, despite some confusion, many correctly linked ‘best before’ dates with quality, ‘use by’ dates with safety and ‘sell by’ and ‘display until’ dates with retailer guidance. There was, however, a sizeable minority who gave definitions that were either totally wrong or showed significant confusion – i.e. they referred to both quality and safety, or were very vague. Thus, although respondents in 65% of cases linked ‘best before’ dates with product quality, in 27% of cases they mentioned safety. Similarly, while in 52% of cases respondents linked ‘use by’ dates to product safety, in 21% of cases they mentioned product quality. While we might ideally like clarity on how many of those who gave a ‘wrong’ answer did so as part of a longer response that included the ‘correct’ definition, it is already clear that a great deal of confusion exists. There is an interesting addendum here. While the numbers of those giving ‘incorrect’ answers are too small for each date type to allow for robust analysis by sub-group, it does appear that for almost every type of date, more affluent social classes were more likely to answer correctly (and perhaps more importantly, less likely to answer incorrectly). Thus, when asked to give a definition for ‘best before’, 21% of ABs mentioned


product safety compared with 37% of DEs. There was a similar story in terms of ‘sell by’ dates; 91% of ABs asked about ‘sell by’ dates said the retailer had to sell the product by that date compared with 71% for DEs. Are lower levels of education attainment to blame for this trend? Are more affluent families more date conscious? Or are they more safety conscious? It would require further research to prove that there is a definite class divide on this issue and if there is, what the cause might be, might this may well be an area that warrants further research and is certainly worth bearing in mind when developing audience-specific messaging. Dates and perceptions of safety People’s use of dates seems frequently to be only partially linked to their understanding of what is meant by those dates and also factors in their perceived needs according to particular products. If they are ‘distrustful’ of a particular product, they may use the date irrespective of what kind of date it is. The reason given by those respondents who did not feel the need to check a particular product’s date(s) was often that it looked or smelled okay. This highlights a crucial point – that people use dates in conjunction with their own assessments of quality and safety, rather than as stand-alone information. This is supported by the fact that although more people said dairy products and eggs were not okay to eat, those respondents who did feel these items were okay were often willing to consume them two days or more after the date on the pack. Those who felt that these products were not okay to eat, on the other hand, were closely wedded to the date on pack, most of them claiming they would only have eaten them if the date had been the same as the hall test or before. This suggests an interesting interplay between guidance dates and personal perceptions of individual products. People appear to discard food that has passed its guidance date when they ‘distrust’ a product on safety grounds, but when they are more confident about a product, they will use the date as a yardstick, applying their own product-specific ‘rules’ to come to a decision about when that item becomes too risky to eat. These rules generally focus upon the look – and to a lesser extent, the smell and feel – of a product, but are also linked to general expectations of product life. Thus, potatoes (and fruit and vegetables more generally) seem to rank among the most ‘safe’ products. Perhaps the most important point here is that perceptions about whether products are ‘trustworthy’ or not varies from person to person. As we have already seen, although almost half of those presented with eggs said they were not okay to eat, many of those who said they would eat them were willing to be flexible in relation to dates, suggesting that there is a real split between those who strictly adhere to the on-pack guidance and those that make their own decision. The number of people who are discarding food due to safety concerns arising from a misinterpretation of dates seems low, but it is worth highlighting some particular products where this sort of misunderstanding does seem to occur, since however small the percentage of people behaving in this way, the impact in terms of overall waste tonnages could still be significant. A good example is ham. Five of the 139 people asked about ham used the ‘use by’ date to decide that it was not okay to eat, despite the fact that the hall tests took place before that date. Three of those thought the product was unsafe to eat – that is to say, they did not seem to know – or to believe – that food would definitely be safe up until midnight on the ‘use by’ date, assuming it was stored correctly. It’s a similar story with the following products: Chicken Ten of the 142 people asked about chicken said they used the date to decide it was not okay to eat and were concerned about safety. As with ham, this implies that those people either have insufficient faith in


‘use by’ dates, leaving themselves a ‘safety buffer’, or simply do not know that a ‘use by’ date means the product will be safe to eat right up until midnight on the date on the pack. Yoghurt Far more people felt that yoghurt was not okay to eat because of safety concerns linked to the date on the pack – 33 of the 139 people asked. The problem here is very different to chicken and ham because the date in question was a ‘best before’ date (yoghurts can be found carrying either a “best-before” or “use-by” date, those selected for this research had the former). It seems likely that some of these people may have been influenced by a perception of yoghurt as being a potentially dangerous product when out of date, an impression that will only have been reinforced by many brand owners and retailers preferring to print ‘use by’ dates on their yoghurts. Cheese In some ways cheese is similar to yoghurt – it carries a ‘best before’ date and a significant number of those asked about it said date-related safety concerns would prevent them from eating it (20 of 139 people, or 14%). However, it differs to yoghurts in that the use of ‘best before’ dates to decide whether cheese is okay to eat is more widespread, despite the fact that most cheeses have a long shelf life. Tomatoes and potatoes The story on tomatoes and potatoes is a similar one, with relatively small numbers of people saying they would not eat produce because it was past its ‘best before’ date, causing them to have concerns about safety. For tomatoes, this view was held by five of the 138 people asked. For potatoes, this figure was four of 137. In both cases, but particularly for potatoes in view of their prominence in UK household food waste, these small numbers, if even the roughest of indications of the national situation, still suggest that many tonnes of food waste are being generated through this sort of misunderstanding of the dates. Dates and perceptions of quality This research has also demonstrated the importance of another factor in the use of dates that presents a difficult challenge for WRAP. A certain proportion of consumers – larger for some products than for others – seems to use dates to determine whether or not a product is of a sufficiently ‘good’ quality to eat. Before quality becomes an issue, consumers will normally – either consciously or subconsciously – have concluded that a product is ‘safe’, but nonetheless use the date to decide that it is simply no longer of the standard they desire. So, for a long-shelf life product like potatoes, some people are discarding produce that is of a perfectly acceptable quality because it has passed its ‘best before’ date. In a sense, this sort of behaviour is perfectly understandable. If potatoes are cheap, why would you not buy new ones if the pack itself is telling you that the ones you have are no longer at their ‘best’. Why eat sub-standard vegetables if you do not need to? Figure 15 below tries to capture this interplay between perceptions of quality and safety and the dates themselves. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the diagram is that understanding of the type of date almost plays second fiddle to these overriding concerns about safety and quality. It’s obviously difficult to tell people who are taking either ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ dates as a sign of inferior quality and discarding edible food as a result that they are ‘wrong’ – certainly in the case of ‘best before’ dates, they have understood the meaning perfectly. The problem is not a misunderstanding of the dates, but rather an attitudinal one that says that food that is not at its ‘best’ should be thrown away17.

17 It’s worth noting there are two sides to this problem. First and foremost there seems to be a pervasive belief that ‘new’ is ‘better’, but perhaps more worrying still, these results suggest that many people never think of ‘secondary’ uses for produce that has past its best, be that making bread and butter pudding or simply cutting the ‘bad bits’ off an apple.


Even if educating people about the meaning of dates won’t help, however, it is still useful to have a better handle on the existence – and the size – of the problem. As with worries about safety, the numbers are too small to rely on to generate a national estimate of this sort of waste, but they do signify that the problem is a real one that seems to apply across most ‘best before’ products. It is perhaps most concerning for the longer shelf life products such as potatoes (where seven of the 137 asked said the product was not okay to eat, used the date to reach that decision and were concerned about quality), tomatoes (seven of 138) and cheese (nine of 139). As for concerns about safety, if we anything close to these figures were replicated on a national level, it could account for significant amounts of food waste. Figure 15: Routes’ to deciding whether a product is okay to eat

What does this mean for WRAP? So if decisions about whether or not a product is okay to eat are an outcome not only of the date on the pack and assessments of its physical attributes (appearance, smell and feel), but also of individuals’ own ‘rules’ in relation to what those factors actually mean, what does this all mean for WRAP? Perhaps the most immediate conclusion is that there is not one simple solution that will eradicate food waste caused by people misusing or misunderstanding guidance dates. In the table below, we summarise some possible courses of action, together with the products they are most relevant to.

Perception of product safety

Is product okay to eat?

Date (and type of date)

Perception of product quality


No. Product(s) Action/goal Detail Further questions

1 Salad, cut fruit, ready meals

None The number of people discarding these products through misunderstanding or misuse of guidance dates seems to be very small.

Might it be possible to extrapolate this finding to all fruit and vegetables products carrying a ‘use by’ date?

2 All products carrying a ‘use by’ date, especially ham

Emphasise that ‘use by’ dates can be trusted as guarantees of product safety

There was evidence that people were leaving a ‘buffer’ before the ‘use by’ date for some products, potentially causing them to be discarded while still okay to eat

How big is the gain? Because the numbers of relevant respondants are so small, it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty.

3 All products carrying a ‘use by’ date

Emphasise that ‘use by’ dates apply right up to midnight on the date on the pack

There is evidence that some people consider ‘use by’ dates in their most literal sense, interpreting them as meaning, “must be used by XXX date”. Emphasising to them that products are safe right up until midnight on the night of the date on the pack could reduce food waste.

Could emphasising the midnight cut-off encourage some people to eat food the day after its ‘use by’ date on the basis that the product will not suddenly have ‘gone bad’?

4 Bread, yoghurt, eggs

Replace ‘best before’ dates with ‘use by’ dates on short shelf-life products

Some people seem to be using ‘best before’ dates on some products such as bread as a sign that it is no longer of a satisfactory quality. By replacing ‘best before’ dates with ‘use by’ dates that were closer to the date bread is likely to go mouldy, this sort of behaviour could be overcome. This action is particularly relevant to eggs, which the FSA recommends should not be eaten beyond their ‘best before’ dates and which may currently be muddying the waters for consumers.

How big would the gains be? How would consumers react to the change in date type? If they felt they had to “guess” a ‘best before’ date, is there a chance they would actually end up throwing away products earlier?

5 Yoghurt Standardise use of dates for products of the same type

Many respondents who looked at yoghurt seemed to interpret the ‘best before’ dates on the pack as ‘use by’ dates. It is possible that this is because most yoghurts do carry ‘use by’ dates. If yoghurts really do pose a significant danger if eaten out of date, it could be beneficial to have all yoghurts carrying ‘use by’ dates. Equally, if the threat is not that great, switching all yoghurts to ‘best before’ dates could be helpful. If different types of a given product (i.e. different types of yoghurt) present different risks, it might also be worth explaining these on pack.

6 Longer life ‘best before’ products including

Improve consumer understanding and

If we learned one thing from this research it was that there is definitely a group of consumers who do not correctly

There is also a concern that consumers who are currently flexible with ‘use by’ dates might begin to adhere to them


yoghurt, cheese, tomatoes and potatoes

awareness of the meaning of (and differences between) different types of dates

differentiate between the different types of guidance date. Emphasising that ‘best before’ dates relate only to quality could see products marked with those dates being kept significantly longer.

more strictly if it were emphasised that they relate to product safety. It is also possible that conveying to consumers that ‘best before’ dates only relate to quality may not be sufficient, since they may simply ask, “Well in that case, how do I know when it is unsafe to eat?” Should we also be considering public education about storage and food safety for certain key products?

7.2 Portion sizes Arguably, the portion sizes element of this research was more straightforward than the guidance dates element. We were aiming to gain a better understanding of two areas: firstly, what proportion of the general public is dissatisfied with the size of portions available to buy for certain key products and why they are dissatisfied; and secondly, what might be the demand for alternative portion sizes? Issues with portion sizes The answers to both these questions were reasonably consistent across the four products tested and offer WRAP a good steer on attitudes towards pack sizes. Around a third of respondents have had issues with portion sizes for ham, salad, pasta sauce and bread. It seems fair to extrapolate this finding to sandwich meats, pre-packed fruit, all loaves of bread and cooking sauces in general. Of those that had found portion sizes to be an issue, the vast majority complained that packs were too large for their needs (with some directly complaining that this led to food waste, though this was not always made explicit). As might be expected, it was those in smaller households that were more likely to register dissatisfaction with existing pack sizes. Pasta sauce provided a notable exception, with some consumers complaining that portions are sometimes too small. Willingness to buy smaller packs The average price respondents said they were willing to pay for a pack half the size of a ‘standard’ pack was between 51% and 65% of the ‘standard’ pack price, suggesting that consumers are not necessarily averse to paying a little more per unit of volume/weight to avoid being left with unnecessary surplus. Having said this, the variation between products in how much more respondents were willing to pay was considerable. There are also two important caveats:

First of all, it should be reiterated that questions about interviewees’ willingness to pay more – whether

that be switching to energy saving light bulbs or a smaller pack size – frequently lead to over-claiming.

Secondly, when interviewees who said they would not consider buying packs in alternative sizes were

asked why, price was listed as a significant factor. This on its own wouldn’t be a huge concern – after

all, these people are hardly likely to be the prime market for smaller packs, but in addition, 15% of those

who said they would consider smaller packs but admitted to having reservations about doing so listed

price as a concern.

Whilst neither of these factors on their own is particularly significant – the base in both cases was relatively small – they do indicate an underlying concern about price that is likely to have been downplayed in the positive predictions of ‘willingness to pay’. It is also the case that where price is not mentioned as a barrier per se, it may be implied in some of the other worries outlined (e.g. in having to buy multiple packs).


Barriers to buying smaller packs Very few people raised concerns about smaller packs increasing packaging waste, but more were concerned that reducing portion sizes would simply see them having to buy more portions – primarily a concern for those in larger households. Ideal pack sizes Preferences in terms of ideal pack size were relatively consistent. In the case of sandwich meats and salad bags, there was a clear preference for packs around half the size of those used as examples of ‘standard’ portions. For pasta and for bread – products for which there was slightly less support for smaller portion sizes – there was a split between those supporting half-size packs and those who were happy with standard portions. Problem products Finally, we asked respondents to try and remember any product types they had struggled with in the past in terms of finding appropriate portion sizes. Interestingly, baked goods was the most popular category mentioned, despite the fact that in the questions on the sample products, a smaller proportion of people said they had issues with portion sizes for bread than did for ham, salad, or pasta sauce. This may well reflect difficulties with baked goods other than bread. What next? There is certainly a case for attempting to improve the supply of smaller pack sizes, but we suggest that question marks remain about how much people will be willing to pay for these. While the results of this research suggest that people may be willing to pay a premium for smaller packs (i.e. more than half the price of a standard pack for a portion that is actually half of the size), this margin is relatively small if we take into account likely over-claiming by respondents. The answer may be to target smaller pack sizes at convenience stores, which are perhaps more likely to be frequented by those living in smaller households and where there may therefore be a logic for the retailer in stocking more, smaller packs. So far as the wider UK population is concerned, however, only in-shop pilots will tell us conclusively whether or not someone from a smaller household, when confronted with a choice between a small pack and a larger product that is cheaper by volume, will elect to pay more for less. Certainly, this research suggests that a market does exist if the right products are on offer at the right price. It is worth making one final point. Packs of different sizes are nothing new and while portions for single-person households may not be that common, variation in sizing does occur. Moreover, we are confident that the pricing of these different pack sizes is something that is carefully monitored by supermarkets, which will be continually trying to balance competitiveness, profitability and choice. Whether or not they would be willing to divulge any data they hold on sales of different portion sizes – and in particular the impact that changes in price or size may have had in the past – is uncertain, but if WRAP were able to access this sort of data it would provide an interesting addendum to this research.


Appendix 1 - Date labelling products Location London Birmingham Sheffield

ASDA Tomatoes

x 6

ASDA White Potatoes

2.5kg bag

ASDA cut fruit pots

80g

Florette mixed salad

200g

ASDA Smart Price Cottage Pie /

Lasagne

300g

ASDA Chicken Breast Fillets 4 fillets

(*product used varies slightly from

picture)

Muller Light yoghurt pot 200g


Delico Ham pack 350g

(*packs used not branded ‘special

price’)

*

Seriously farmy cheddar

200g/

Sainsbury’s farmhouse cheddar 400g

ASDA semi-skimmed milk

2 pints

ASDA Smart Price eggs

x6

Kingsmill White Bread

800g


Appendix 2 - Pack size products Location London Birmingham Sheffield

Hovis White Bread

800g

Lloyd Grossman Pasta Sauce

350g

Mixed Salad Bags Sainsbury’s French

Style Salad 200g /

Sainsbury’s Crispy Leaf Salad 150g

Sainsbury’s Ham

12 slices


Appendix 3 – The questionnaire LOCATION – INTERVIEWER TO CIRCLE RELEVANT OPTION (1) Sutton (20/10/2007) 1 Kingston (20/10/2007) 2 Birmingham #1 (Odeon, 27/10/2007) 3 Birmingham #2 (Pod, 27/10/2007) 4 Sheffield #1 (Channing Hall, 27/10/2007) 5 Sheffield #2 (Houlden Hall, 27/10/2007) 6

Intros, explanation & filter question Good morning/afternoon/evening, I’m from ICM. We’re interested in the way people make decisions about what to eat. The survey will take about 15 minutes and is confidential. Would you be willing to take part? Thank you. I’d just like to start by asking a few questions to determine whether you’re eligible to take part. If you are, I’ll ask you to come inside. [NOTE TO INTERVIEWERS: interviewers to emphasise that respondents should consider the products as though they are in their own home, but reassure them where necessary that food has been properly stored before the hall test]

(2) Screening Q1. Which of the following best applies to you? I never do any food shopping 1 I sometimes do the food shopping 2 I do most of the food shopping 3 I do all the food shopping 4

Continue to screening Q2

(3)

Screening Q2. Do you do any of the food preparation at home? No, I never prepare any food 1 Yes, sometimes 2 Yes, it’s usually me 3 Yes, it’s always me 4

If coded 3 or 4 for either Q1 or Q2 or both Q1 and Q2, commence interview. If not, thank and close.

Research into consumer behaviour in relation to food dates and portion sizes

65

STATION 1 to test Chicken unopened Salad unopened Milk opened Bread opened STATION 2 to test Ready meal unopened Cut fruit unopened Eggs unopened Potatoes unopened STATION 3 to test Ham unopened Tomatoes unopened Cheese unopened Yoghurt unopened Product-specific questions – repeated four times (4) Q3: STATION NUMBER (interviewer to circle as appropriate) Station 1 1 Station 2 2 Station 3 3

(5/6) Q4: PRODUCT (interviewer to circle as appropriate) STATION 1 Chicken fillets 1 Salad 2 Milk 3 Bread 4 STATION 2 Ready meal 5 Cut fruit 6 Eggs 7 Potatoes 8 STATION 3 Ham 9 Tomatoes 10 Cheese 11 Yoghurt 12

(7)

Q5. I’d like you to imagine you are at home looking at this product. Would you say it’s okay to eat/drink? SINGLE CODE Yes 1 No 2 Don’t know 3

Date labelling


(8) Q6. INTERVIEWER TO OBSERVE RESPONDENT AND RECORD ANY OF FOLLOWING BEHAVIOURS MULTIPLE CODING Respondent appears to look for dates 1 Respondent squeezes pack 2 Respondent attempts to sniff pack 3 Respondent only looks at product 4 Other (please record) 5

(9)

Q7. How did you reach that decision (AT Q5)? DO NOT READ OUT. PROBE FULLY. MULTICODE Look 1 Smell 2 Feel 3 Perceived risk of food (e.g. salmonella in chicken or eggs). 4

IF DID NOT USE DATE, GO TO Q11

Date on pack RESPONDENT USES DATE:

Use by 5 Sell by 6

Display until 7

Best before 8

-IF THINKS PRODUCT OKAY TO EAT, GO TO Q8

-IF THINKS PRODUCT NOT OKAY

TO EAT, GO TO Q9

Other (please specify)

9 IF DID NOT USE DATE, GO TO Q11, OTHERWISE, SEE ABOVE

RESPONDENT USED DATE AND JUDGED PRODUCT IS OKAY TO EAT IF RESPONDENT FEELS PRODUCT IS OKAY TO EAT (CODE 1 AT Q5) AND HAS USED DATE TO DECIDE THIS (CODES 5-8 AT Q7) ASK:

(10/11) Q8. What would the date on this pack have had to be for you to think it was not okay to eat today? [if more than one date on pack, interviewer to ask respondent to think about the one they used to make their decision] Tomorrow (28/10) 1 Today (27/10) 2 Yesterday (26/10) 3 2 days ago (25/10) 4 3 days ago (24/10) 5 4 days ago (23/10) 6 5 days ago (22/10) 7 1 week ago (20/10) 8 More than 1 week ago 9 Would not depend on date 10 Other (Please specify)

11

Don’t know 12

NOW GO TO Q13


RESPONDENT USED DATE AND JUDGED PRODUCT IS NOT OKAY TO EAT IF RESPONDENT FEELS PRODUCT IS NOT OKAY TO EAT (CODE 2 AT Q5) AND HAS USED DATE TO DECIDE THIS (CODES 5-8 AT Q7) ASK:

(12) Q9. What concerns you about that date? DO NOT READ OUT. MULTICODE. PROBE FULLY e.g. what does that mean? [if more than one date on pack, interviewer to ask respondent to think about the one they used to make their decision in Q7] The product may not be safe to eat 1 The product will not be of a good enough quality to eat 2 Other (please state)

3

(13)

Q10. What would the date on this pack have to be for you to think it was okay to eat today? [if more than one date on pack, interviewer to ask respondent to think about the one they used to make their decision in Q7] In 2 days’ time (29/10) 1 Tomorrow (28/10) 2 Today (27/10) 3 Yesterday (26/10) 4 2 days ago (25/10) 5 3 days ago (24/10) 6 Would not depend on date 7 Other 8 Don’t know 9

NOW GO TO Q13

RESPONDENT DID NOT USE DATE IF RESPONDENT DID NOT USE DATE (NOT CODES 5-8 AT Q7) TO DECIDE WHETHER PRODUCT WAS OK TO EAT ASK

(14) Q11. Do you ever look at the date on this type of product before you decide whether it’s okay to eat? SINGLE CODE

Yes 1 CONTINUE No 2

Don’t know 3 GO TO Q13

(15)

Q12. Why did you not look at the date(s) in this instance? SPONTANEOUS. MULTICODE. Product appearance

Product looked okay/bad 1 Product smelled okay/bad 2 Product felt okay/wrong 3 Product is unopened 4

Product type Don’t worry about this type of product/ it’s a safe product 5 With this type of product you can tell whether it’s okay without looking at the date 6

Other Didn’t see the date 7 Not sure what the date means 8 I never look at the dates 9

Other (please specify)

10


ASK ALL FOR ALL PRODUCTS EXCEPT BREAD AND MILK (16)

Q13. If the pack had already been opened at home, would this have influenced your decision about whether or not it was okay to eat? SINGLE CODE

Yes. If so, how?

1

No 2 Don’t know 3

General food guidance date questions

(53) Q44. Do you ever look at the date on a product when you’re deciding whether or not it can be frozen? SPONTANEOUS. SINGLE CODE ONLY

Yes 1 CONTINUE No 2 I don’t freeze any food 3 Don’t know 4

GO TO Q47

(54)

Q45. Does the type of date make any difference in your decision about whether to freeze a product? SPONTANEOUS. SINGLE CODE

Yes 1 CONTINUE No – it just has to be before any date on the pack 2 No – it just has to be before OR ON any date on the pack 3 No – so long as it’s not more than a day past the date 4 No - other – please state 5 Don’t know 6

GO TO Q47

(55/56)

Q46. How do you use the date in choosing whether or not to freeze the product? ASK FOR EACH TYPE OF DATE. MUTI CODE. IF DON’T KNOW FOR DATE TYPE LEAVE BLANK

BEST BEFORE Must be before the best before date 1 Must be before OR ON the best before date 2 So long as it’s no more than a day past the date 3 So long as it’s no more than two days past the best before date 4 USE BY Must be before the use by date 5 Must be before OR ON the use by date 6 So long as it’s no more than a day past the use by date 7 SELL BY/DISPLAY UNTIL Must be before the sell by/display until date 8 Must be before OR ON the sell by/display until date 9 So long as it’s no more than a day past the sell by/display until date 10 So long as it’s no more than two days past the sell by/display until date

11

ASK FOR EACH TYPE

OF DATE THEN GO TO

Q47

OTHER RESPONSES Other – please state

12

Don’t know 13 GO TO Q47


(57) Q47. When you see the words ‘best before’ on a pack, what does it mean to you? OPEN ENDED QUESTION. PROBE FULLY (e.g. respondent says “you should eat it before that date”, probe, “Why should you eat it before that date?”)

Record answer

1

Don’t know 2

(58) Q48. When you see the words ‘use by’ on a pack, what does it mean to you? OPEN ENDED QUESTION. PROBE FULLY (e.g. respondent says “you should eat it before that date”, probe, “Why should you eat it before that date?”)

Record answer

1

Don’t know 2

(59) Q49. When you see the words ‘sell by’ on a pack, what does it mean to you? OPEN ENDED QUESTION. PROBE FULLY (e.g. respondent says “you should eat it before that date”, probe, “Why should you eat it before that date?”)

Record answer

1

Don’t know 2

(60) Q50. When you see the words ‘display until’ on a pack, what does it mean to you? OPEN ENDED QUESTION. PROBE FULLY (e.g. respondent says “you should eat it before that date”, probe, “Why should you eat it before that date?”)

Record answer

1

Don’t know 2

Product-specific questions – repeated twice ALL STATIONS TO ASK ABOUT BREAD PLUS: Station 1 – Salad Station 2 – Pasta sauce Station 3 – Ham (61) Q51. FIRST PRODUCT (interviewer to circle as appropriate) Bread 1 Salad 2 Pasta sauce 3 Ham 4

Pack sizes


(62) Q52. Is this a type of product that you usually buy? SINGLE CODE Type of product - any bread, bagged salad, pre-made sauce, cooked meat Yes 1 No 2 Don’t know 3

(63) Q53. Has the portion size available for [type of product] ever been an issue for you? SINGLE CODE Yes 1 CONTINUE No 2 Don’t know 3

IF NO/ DK AND BUY PRODUCT, GO TO Q55 IF NO/ DK AND DON’T BUY GO TO Q60

(64/65) Q54. In what way has it been an issue? SPONTANEOUS, PROBE FULLY (Why does it matter to you if it’s a big/ small pack?), MULTICODE

Pack size too big I can’t eat it all 1 I don’t like wasting food 2 It’s expensive to buy in big quantities 3 It loses its freshness before I can finish it 4 I can’t carry it 5 I don’t have space to store it 6 It goes off 7 Pack size too small I’m bothered by the amount of packaging 8 It’s more expensive to buy in small packs 9 I have to buy several packs of it 10 I have to buy several packs and then end up throwing some away 11 It runs out too quickly 12 Other (please specify)

13

(66) Q55. Would you consider buying [the product] in a smaller pack? SINGLE CODE Yes 1 GO TO Q56 No 2 GO TO Q57 It depends 3 GO TO Q58

IF WOULD CONSIDER BUYING SMALLER PACK (CODE 1 AT Q55) (67) Q56. Why would you consider it? DO NOT READ OUT. MULTICODE I would be able to eat it all 1 It would mean I didn’t have to throw so much way 2 It would be less expensive to buy smaller quantities 3 It would always be fresh 4 It would be easier to carry 5 It would be easier to store 6 Other (please specify)

7

GO TO Q59


IF WOULD NOT CONSIDER BUYING SMALLER PACK (CODE 2 AT Q55) (68) Q57. Why would you not consider it? DO NOT READ OUT. MULTICODE Too much packaging 1 It’s more expensive to buy/ to buy the amount I need in small packs 2 I would have to buy several packs of it 3 I would end up opening several packs and then end up throwing some away 4 I need more in one go than is in one pack 5 I don’t ever buy this product 6 Other (please specify)

7

GO TO Q60

IF IT DEPENDS (CODE 3 AT Q55) (69) Q58. Why would it depend? DO NOT READ OUT. MULTICODE I would prefer not to but if it was the only thing available I would 1 It would depend how much it costs 2 Other (please specify)

3 GO TO Q59

IF WOULD CONSIDER BUYING A SMALLER PACK (CODES 1 OR 3 AT Q55) (70) Q59. Do you have any reservations about buying this product in smaller packs? DO NOT READ OUT. MULTICODE Yes

The packaging 1 The price per quantity 2 The space extra packs would take up 3 It would run out/ I wouldn’t have enough in one go 4 I don’t like opening lots of packs 5

No 6 Other (please specify)

7

ASK ALL – PRICES FOR THE QUESTION BELOW ARE AS FOLLOWS: Bread - £1.05 Pasta Sauce - £1.20 Salad - £1.90 Ham - £1.00 (71) Q60. If the larger pack cost XXX, how much would you expect to pay for a pack half the size? SINGLE CODE, PUSH FOR AN EXACT FIGURE

□□□pence 1

Don’t know 2 I would never buy this product GO TO NEXT PRODUCT 3

(72) Q61. What would be the most that you would be willing to pay for the smaller pack? SINGLE CODE, PUSH FOR AN EXACT FIGURE

□□□pence 1

Don’t know 2

I would never buy this product GO TO NEXT PRODUCT 3


(73-75) Q62. What sized pack would you find most appropriate for this product? SINGLE CODE 0-50g (0 – 1.8 oz) 1

51-100g (1.9 - 3 oz) 2

101-150g (3.1 - 5.3 oz) 3

151-200g (5.4 – 7 oz) 4

201-250g (7.1 – 8.8 oz) 5

250-300g (8.9 – 10.6 oz) 6

301-350g (10.7 – 12.3 oz) 7

351-400g (12.4 – 14.1 oz) 8

401-450g (14.2 – 15.9 oz) 9

451-500g (16 oz – 17.6 oz) 10

More than 500g (more than 17.6 oz) 11

0-50ml 12

51-100ml 13

101-150ml 14

151-200ml 15

201-250ml 16

250-300ml 17

301-350ml 18

351-400ml 19

401-450ml 20

451-500ml 21

More than 500ml 22

Don’t know 23

Other (please state)

24

Normal size 25

General questions – pack sizes ASK ALL (91) Q75. Can you remember ever having wanted to buy foods in a pack size that was not available? SINGLE CODE Yes 1 GO TO Q76 No 2 GO TO Q78

IF HAVE WANTED TO BUY PRODUCT IN DIFFERENT QUANTITY (CODE 1 at Q75) (92/93) Q76. What kind of foods have you wanted to buy in different pack sizes? SPONTANEOUS; PROBE FULLY; MULTI CODE OK Bread/ cake 1 Cheese 2 Cooked meats 3 Fresh fish 4 Fresh fruit 5 Fresh meat 6 Fresh vegetables 7 Frozen foods 8 Milk 9 Other dairy (e.g. yoghurt, cream) 10


Rice/ pasta/ couscous/ dried pulses 11 Sauces and dressings 12 Tinned foods 13 Snacks and confectionary 14 Cooked (or smoked) fish 15 Cereals 16 Pre-prepared foods/ ready meals 17 Don’t know 18 Other (please specify)

19

(94) Q77. What made you want to buy it/ them in a different size? DO NOT READ OUT. PROBE FULLY, MULTICODE OK Pack size too big I can’t eat it all 1 I don’t like wasting food 2 It’s expensive to buy in big quantities 3 It loses it’s freshness before I can finish it 4 Pack size too small There’s packaging round each pack 5 It’s more expensive to buy in small packs 6 I have to buy several packs of it 7 I have to buy several packs and then end up throwing some away 8 I want more of the product 9 Other (please specify)

10

GO TO Q80

IF HAVE NOT WANTED TO BUY PRODUCT IN DIFFERENT QUANTITY (CODE 2 at Q75) (95) Q78. Can you see any value in having foods available for purchase in different quantities? MULTICODE (If respondent unsure of word ‘value’, say ‘benefit’) Yes 1 GO TO Q79 No 2 It depends 3

GO TO Q80

(96/97) Q79. What would that value be? DO NOT READ OUT. PROBE FULLY, MULTICODE (If respondent unsure of word ‘value’, say ‘benefit’) Pack size too big I can’t eat it all 1 I don’t like wasting food 2 It’s expensive to buy in big quantities 3 It loses it’s freshness before I can finish it 4 Pack size too small There’s packaging round each pack 5 It’s more expensive to buy in small packs 6 I have to buy several packs of it 7 I have to buy several packs and then end up throwing some away 8 It runs out too quickly 9 I want more of the product 10 Other (please specify)

11


(98)

Q80. How much uneaten food – overall - would you say you throw away in general? Would you say…? SINGLE CODE Quite a lot 1 A reasonable amount 2 Some 3 A small amount 4 Hardly any 5

None 6

(99) Q81. Thinking about when you have to throw uneaten food items away, to what extent, if at all, does it bother you? SINGLE CODE A great deal 1 A fair amount 2 A little 3 Not very much 4 Not at all 5

(100)

Q82. How much effort do you and your household go to in order to minimise the amount of uneaten food you throw away? SINGLE CODE A great deal 1 A fair amount 2 A little 3 Not very much 4 None at all 5

Socio-demographics NAME: FULL POST CODE: (Card 5. Rpt 1-11. 12-17) TELEPHONE NO: ADDRESS

Food waste


♦ GENDER

(18) 1. Female 2. Male

♦ AGE:

(19) 1. 16-24 2. 25-34 3. 35-44 4. 45-54 5. 55-64 6. 65+

♦ SOCIAL CLASS:

(20) 1. AB 2. C1 3. C2 4. DE

♦ WORKING STATUS:

(21) 1. Working full time 2. Working part time 3. In full time education 4. Stay at home parent 5. On maternity leave 6. Retired 7. Unemployed/seeking work 8. Other

♦ HOUSING TYPE

(22) 1. Block of flats 2. Flat in converted house 3. Terraced house 4. Semi-detached house 5. Detached house 6. Bungalow 7. Other

♦ ETHNICITY (SHOW CARD ETHNICITY) To which of these ethnic groups do you consider you belong? (24-25)

1. White British 2. Any other white background 3. Mixed white and Black Caribbean 4. Mixed White and Black African 5. White and Asian 6. Any other Mixed background 7. Asian or Asian British – Indian 8. Asian or Asian British – Pakistani 9. Asian or Asian British – Bangladeshi 10. Any other Asian background 11. Black or Black British – Caribbean 12. Black or Black British – African 13. Black or Black British – any other Black background 14. Chinese 15. Other Ethnic group

♦ HOUSING TENURE: (26)

1. Owner outright 2. Owner occupied 3. Rented – social 4. Rented – private 5. Other

♦ NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN HH: (27)

1. 1 2. 2 3. 3 4. 4 5. 5+


♦ NUMBER OF CHILDREN UNDER 16 IN HH (28) 1. 0 2. 1 3. 2 4. 3+

♦ SAMPLE POINT NUMBER

(29-31)

INTERVIEWER DECLARATION: I declare that this interview has been carried out by me in accordance with your instructions SIGNED

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