Information for businesses

Do not throw away food past its ‘best before’ date.

You can still SELL it. It is legal to sell food past its ‘best before’ date (as opposed to perishable food with a ‘use by’ date on them such as fresh meat, fish, ready made meals and sandwiches), as long as the food has been kept in safe conditions and you let customers know that the food is past its ‘best before’ date.

You can also DONATE it to local charities - either directly or via Best Before Project’s re-distribution network.

Food past its ‘best before’ date is safe to consume and the ‘best before’ label is merely an indication that after the date the food ‘might begin to lose its texture or flavour’ (see [link to food labelling info]). It will not poison you or your customers and in most cases it will taste exactly the same as an item ‘in date’. Think dry rice, pasta, tinned baked beans, honey and … over 80% of all food in the UK.

Please get in touch with us for any assistance and further information.

Be part of our BEST BEFORE, STILL GOOD AFTER campaign.

We will be happy to help you to set up a zero-waste stock rotation system - saving you money, saving the environment and contributing to your local community!

Additional info here.

Information for charities

Don’t throw away food past its ‘best before’ date.

Food past its ‘best before’ date is safe to consume and the ‘best before’ label is merely an indication that after the date the food ‘might begin to lose its texture or flavour’ (see [link to food labelling info]). It will not poison you or your clients and in most cases it will taste exactly the same as an item ‘in date’. Think dry rice, pasta, tinned baked beans, honey and … over 80% of all food in the UK.

Food past its ‘best before’ date is safe to distribute among your target group, and is perfectly legal.

Additional info here.

Information for consumers

Don’t throw away food past its ‘best before’ date. It’s perfectly ok to eat!

Food past its ‘best before’ date is safe to consume and the ‘best before’ label is merely an indication that after the date the food ‘might begin to lose its texture or flavour’ (see [link to food labelling info]). It will not poison you or your family and in most cases it will taste exactly the same as an item ‘in date’. Think dry rice, pasta, tinned baked beans, honey and … over 80% of all food in the UK.

Take part in our BEST BEFORE, STILL GOOD AFTER campaign and ask your local shop what they do with food past its ‘best before’ date. We encourage food businesses to either SELL it (as it is perfectly legal to do so as long as the food has been stored in safe conditions and the consumer is informed that the food is past its ‘best before’ date) or DONATE any surplus to local charities directly or via Best Before Project’s redistribution network.

Don’t throw good food away - save money, save the environment and live happily :)

Additional info here.

Get involved

People volunteer for a number of different reasons, including learning new skills, having fun, making a difference and gaining experience to put on their CVs. Some are really devoted to the cause while others simply wish to do their bit where they can. Every little or big amount of help is welcome.

We do need a hand in the following areas:

1. Impact assessment: Ways of assessing the environmental and social impact of our actions. We need statistics and research that can prove what we are reporting to the authorities: huge amounts of food are being sent to landfills due to a misunderstanding of food labels and a very big percentage of it is labelled ‘best before’ while it’s still perfectly edible.

3. Publicity and PR: Advice on publicity and spreading our message.

4. Finance: Advice on developing into a self-sustaining organisation (ways of obtaining funding - either directly generated by our activities or through funding bodies, as well as help with presenting our activities and ideas for funding applications).

What you can do for us right now?

You can support our objectives by following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you “like” us and share our news it would be a huge help in terms of visitors and visibility among other social network users. Thank you! <3

Volunteer

Remember that we aim to raise awareness about food labelling and to save edible food from destruction by encouraging business to either SELL the food at a discount or to DONATE to local charities or directly to Best Before Project for re-distribution. So, the best way to start volunteering is by sharing our flyer with others and supporting us on our social network pages at Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

If you are interested in what we do, would you like to receive our monthly newsletter? It is still in "beta testing", but here we provide a monthly update of what's going on.

If you are interested in occasionally helping and get a bit more infos you can join our BBP friends mailing list as well - we will let you know about anti-food waste events, meeting dates and other occasional activities that might interest you and maybe enable you in the future to meet us personally.

Do you love to work in a team?

Why not create your own local team? Members of a local team can:

· Coordinate the team
· Approach businesses as a food labelling advisor
· Look for new suppliers and recipients in their area
· Work in a warehouse (record keeper, storage keeper)
· Drive a van
· Collect food
· Coordinate food distribution
· Run a free shop

Otherwise you can see if there are any vacancies on one of our existing local teams. Take a look at the following list and write to us at info@bestbefore.org.uk if you would like to be involved in any of the existing teams. You can check our BBP MAP.

- Northwood Hills - HA6 1LT

We'd love to hear from you.

Open positions

Donate

Your donation will:

• pay for fuel and transport expenses when picking up larger quantities of food otherwise destined for landfill, to be distributed among charities.

• cover the cost of running educational campaigns (leaflets, transport of food to give as samples, volunteers’ public transport costs and so on).

• help us to create more local ‘waste’ food re-distribution points, save more food and feed more people in need via partner charities.

We are all volunteers happy to give our time and skills to stop food waste. Everything we do is done in the most cost-efficient way possible and all money donated goes directly towards our activities.

Bank details:

Best Before Project
The Co-operative Bank
Account no: 65577840
Sort code: 08-92-99