Best Before Project Blog

In 2021 we’re reviving the Best Before Project blog and increasing our media presence and visibility to spread the word about our work. In order to do that however, there’s one important thing you should know about us, the target of our project - Reducing food waste. It’s not the most glamorous subject to learn about, but understanding food waste is key to understanding our goals and why we do what we do. The BBPs main goal is to educate the public on the misconceptions about best before dates and reduce the amount of food ending up in landfills. So many of us assume that when a piece of food reaches its best before date, it’s ‘gone off’ but the BBP aims to show that this isn’t the case and that there are many things to do with food that’s past its best before date. Together with many other charities and organisations, the Best Before Project aims ultimately to make a positive difference in people’s lives and the wider world, a goal that we’re sure many of you share.  As food waste...

 Hello everybody! Here are the renewed addresses for our social networks! We still need help from volnteers willing to take care of those social media, blog and newsletters! Please get in touch with us if you want to help :) - details here 📷 Instagram - @bestbeforeproject 📘 Facebook   bestbeforeproject 🐤 Twitter -  @bestbeforeproj And, if you want to receive info about what we are doing vie email, you can subscribe to our BBP News newsletter 📧 if you want to some more information or be more helpful, we send more info and sometimes send open volunteering positons on our BBP Friends  📧📧 mailing list

 Let's follow the example! don't waste the food! Food that is good after expiry date A supermarket in Boston is going to sell only food that's past its sell-by date. So what are they, asks Rajini Vaidyanathan. In the US alone, 40% of food is thrown out, partly because of confusing date labels, telling consumers to "use by", "sell by" and "enjoy by" a certain time. Some of the dates are not about safety but taste, says Dana Gunders, a food scientist from the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), which has issued a report saying much of the food labelled bad is actually perfectly edible. Early next year, businessman Doug Rauch, once behind the successful Trader Joe's chain in the US, is opening a supermarket and restaurant which will sell outdated food. So what are some of those foods? Tortilla chips aren't going to make you sick after a month, says Gunders, although they might start tasting stale. Putting them in an oven with oil wi...

Hello! BBP is always looking for food-related articles, and journalists interested in this topic! if you find any that you think are related to our mission, please send us a link to them to our e-mail :)

 Another van full of food moved to one of our storages! Remember, we always need: - volunteers to load and unload the food - boxes to store the unvboxed food we get - our message to be spread all over the world!!! Help us in any way you can! and thanks to our volunteer Francesco for the help! :D

 As all the organizations, BBP has a structure and needs medium and long term plans. That is why we decided to attend a workshop that Matt kindly organized for us! Will it work? Will we go ahead with our mission? Only time can tell, but we are faithful and will put all our effort to make it happen!

 Hello everybody! Although we are focused on "Best Before" labeled food, sometimes it happens that we occour in large quantities of other kinds of food that needs to be saved! Here is an example! about 700kg of tasty vegetables saved from landfill thanks to the joint action of BBP and Feeding 5K, and distributed to CFE (Community Food Enterprise) and to Rad Cross Following there are some pictures of the action (sorry for the quality!) Good job guys!        

What's gonna happen when the day X comes? P.s. don't confuse Expiry date with Best Before date! :) - info here

 Yes, we had to vacate our garage in Tottenham Hale.This storage has been our first, and we used it for 3 years; loads of food passed through it and the last stored food has been taken by Red Cross, Woodberry Downs Baptist Church and some by people who run the kitchen in Harlesden Closing this storage is not a simple logistical matter for us. Makes us think that is already years that we are going on with our project, and we need to be dynamic and focus on the main goal of Best Before Project, although it's not easy and obstacles and changes are constantly incoming.

 What a nice event has been! Our Food Labelling Community Awareness Brunch has been a really nice time for us all, and we hope for all of our guests too! Thanks for coming, keep spreading our message and see you all soon!

Great news!!!! "The European Union is poised to scrap compulsory “best before” labels on coffee, rice, dry pasta, hard cheeses, jams and pickles to help reduce the estimated 100 million tons of food wasted across Europe each year." This is exactly what we are fighting for during the last three years! You can read about it on many web news: The Telegraph Independent IE The Peninsula Independent Irish Examiner Triplepundit Bitterwallet But the UK government aren’t backing it at the moment, despite saying they’re open to a dialogue. A spokesman said: ‘We believe the connection between these labels and food waste requires further investigation to ensure the removal of date marks doesn’t have the opposite effect to that intended.’ We can show that!!!!! Let's win this battle! New Zealand is already following the example! The New Zealand Herald 

 Best Before Project is glad to invite you all to the Food Labelling Community Awareness Brunch! Please confirm your participation in Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/events/619630501450493/ Tickets available till the 26th of May on Grubclub and Eventbrite During this event, you will be able to: Eat delicious and food prepared with products approaching or passed the Best Before date, that was meant to be sent to the landfill Ask more information about food labeling and how to avoid the waste of food Talk to people generally interested in environment and social issues Details of the event: 3rd 31st of May - 11 a.m. 117 The Vale, W3 7RQ Acton

 New Office in Acton! A lot of work to move everything from the former East Acton Storage to Harrow, Tulse Hills and the new office in Acton, but finally It's all done! After a proper cleanup we'll have our next meeting in the new office! 164 Acton High Street, W3 6QZ

 Have you already been in our new Best Before Project shop? We are at 160 Northholt Road, South Harrow in collaboration with Silver House. Our adorable Uparima is in charge!

 I attended Aylward Academy in Edmonton North London as a supply teacher.  I was asked to cover a Design & Technology class. The pupils did not want to do the work set by their teacher and wanted to just have a free lesson.  So I suggested to them and said Can you help me to design a website logo about anti-food waste?  I showed them your old website Home Page with one Big Green Circle....booooring!!!  :)  I said : Can you make me some great designs about not wasting food? I explained the Best Before does not mean Use By.  I asked them to draw anything of interest.  They said ok: They were Yr. 8 pupils between 12-13 years of age.  You can see from their designs how they understood perfectly that Best Before does not mean Use By. I asked them to check the Best Before date on any cans they had at home in their cupboard and not to throw it out if its just passed the date, but open and smell or taste it, to check their quality!  Yes, Mis...

Reducing food waste to help Lambeth poorest - a new project in cooperation with Lambeth Council and the lovely Made in Lambeth is finally here! Stage 1: Let's be realistic and creative at the same time! If you live or work in Lambeth come and join us at Impact Hub Lambeth on Saturday 12th April 2014 from 10am-4.30pm and help us make a difference at great brain-storming event. Any skills and experience is much appreciated but we would be particularly happy to hear from IT minded people to help us create a prototype Lambeth-wide food sharing platform. Every day tonnes of perfectly good food goes to waste across Lambeth, while at the same time thousands of Lambeth families go hungry. Food banks and charities are doing fantastic work to try and meet this growing issue, but they need help to meet the demand. It is a complicated issue to solve, but the Best Before movement (http://bestbefore.org.uk/) in collaboration with Lambeth Council have spotted an opportunity to support and enhance...

 Recently we have been receiving a big amount of food in our East Acton storage. take a look!

 Is it really a crime taking some food meant to be sent to landfills? Three charged with stealing food from skip behind Iceland supermarket Crown Prosecution Service claims there is 'significant public interest' in prosecuting men arrested for taking discarded food Paul May and fellow defendants will appear before magistrates charged with stealing food from a bin Paul May and his two fellow defendants will appear before magistrates charged under an obscure section of the 1824 Vagrancy Act. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian A man will stand trial next month after being caught taking some tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese from the dustbins behind a branch of Iceland. It is expected Paul May, a freelance web designer, will argue that he was taking the food because he needed it to eat and does not consider he has done anything illegal or dishonest in removing food destined for landfill from a skip. The case will require magistrates to scrutinise the phenomenon of "skippi...

According to the latest report by the government's waste advisory body, £12.5bn worth of avoidable food and drink waste was thrown away last year in the UK. What are the other key findings from the report? 4.2m tonnes of avoidable food and drink waste was thrown away by UK households last year - worth £12.5bn - according to the latest report by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap).   Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/nov/07/food-waste-uk-latest-report-key-findings

 Interview to Notre Dame Refugee centre representative, Chris Atkinson