Asda announced a major change for over half of its popular own brand products this month.
The big four supermarket said it was to remove the "use by" dates across a range of its own brand yoghurts and will replace them with "Best Before" dates instead.
"Best before" dates are about the quality of food, while "use by" dates are used to show when a product is no longer safe to eat.
Asda said the packaging change would allow customers to use their own judgement to when the product is "off" which will help combat food waste.
The change will gradually happen over the next few weeks with customers able to see it on around 28 of its products.
This includes Asda's natural yoghurt, Greek yoghurt and Extra Special strawberry and hazelnut yoghurt.
Asda said the decision to change the packaging's wording comes after data from climate action group NGO Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) revealed that a massive 50% of all yoghurt wasted from UK households comes from unopened cartons.
The labelling itself has also been cited as the reason for the waste, as an additional 70% of yoghurt waste comes from households not 'eating the product in time'.
The popular supermarket chain said it has conducted "robust food safety and quality evaluations" on all of the products it will make packaging changes too.
Asda says the 28 dairy products that have been targeted sell around 455,000 units a week.
Paul Gillow, vice president of fresh and frozen foods at Asda, said: “We are always looking at ways we can help customers reduce food waste in the home, and with research from WRAP saying 54,000 tonnes of edible yoghurt is thrown away unnecessarily each year we are hopeful this change will both make a big difference to the environment and save customers money at the same time.”
The packaging change to its yogurt products follows Asda's previous decision to remove the "Best Before" dates on around 250 of its fresh fruit and vegetable items in last year.
The "Best By" date was replaced with a new code that would be used by store staff to "ensure quality and freshness".
Again the decision was made to aid the prevention of food waste.
Over the last few years, several major supermarkets have done this with Tesco being one of the first back in 2018 to scrap the "Best Before" date on around 100 of its products.
Co-op scrapped the dates for its own brand yoghurts in April last year and in January, Morrisons announced its plans to remove "Use By" dates on milk and encourages customers to use a "sniff test" instead.
The charity WRAP has frequently condemned the idea of “Best Before” dates on fruit and vegetables arguing that they only contribute to the climate crisis by encouraging perfectly good food to be thrown away.
Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at WRAP, said: “WRAP is thrilled to see our partner Asda make these changes on yoghurts – which will help reduce food waste in our homes.
"Wasting food feeds climate change and costs us money – with the average family spending £700 a year on good food which ends up in the bin.
"Our research shows applying the appropriate date label to products like yoghurts can help reduce the amount of good food that is thrown in the bin."
