Page 50 - Phonebox Magazine November 2014

Are ‘best before’ dates a thing of the past?
In a world where 3D printers and drones are being rumoured to take the place of delivery people, and contactless payments are in full swing, shopping is
becoming increasingly hi-tech and futuristic every day. While many of these inventions hold the negative implications of seeming to take jobs away from people, a new idea could help save us from wasting food in a very simple way.
The amount of food that is thrown away every week in the UK is huge. A recent UN food report estimates that the average UK family throws away food worth £700 each year, and over 100 million tonnes of food is wasted every year globally. A key contributor to this is the ‘best before’ or ‘expiry’ dates printed on foods. Tonnes of food is wasted everyday because it can’t legally be sold once the best before date has passed, whether or not the food is actually in an edible condition or not.
A new invention in the field of food labelling appears to help significantly reduce the amount of food needlessly wasted.
Sarah Wall
A 23-year-old Brunel University design graduate, Solveiga Pakstaite, has recently designed a food label with a tactile bump, which would show when the food is actually going off. The invention is a bio-reactive label, which is made with gelatine and simply copies what the food is doing in terms of its decay rate. When gelatine decays it becomes liquid, causing bumps in the previously smooth label when the food is going off, which is easy for people to see or feel. This could easily be
applied to existing packages of perishable foods, including meat, dairy and fruit juices. The design initially came about after working on ways to make life easier for blind people. The bio-reactive label has won the prestigious James Dyson award, and is currently in the testing stages. If supermarkets take this concept on, it could dramatically reduce the amount of unnecessary food that is wasted, and help us as a nation to become that little bit greener.
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50 Phonebox Magazine