Scrap the labels

When consumers are advised by a senior government minister to ignore those “best before” or “use by” labels on all those products in supermarkets you have to wonder why we have them at all. In London overnight, Hilary Benn, Britain’s Environment Secretary argued that shoppers should use their own common sense rather than taking the labels as some kind of gospel truth. The waste, said the Minister, from following the advice was enormous. I bet this is one reform we don’t see in Australia in the near future, no matter how sensible it actually is.