We are a partner of the campaign ‘Often good longer’
We have joined the nationwide campaign launched by Too Good To Go, which aims to educate consumers to correctly read and interpret expiry dates on food products and to verify their freshness using their senses.
As the report by Food Banks[1] in Poland shows, as many as 64% of adults do not know what the labels on food products mean. They cannot distinguish between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates. An important consideration is that 10% of food is wasted[2] due to misunderstandings of expiry date labels, leading to food being thrown away unnecessarily. As it turns out, Poles often discard food after the ‘best before’ date, even though it is still good and safe for consumption, which is not without consequences for the environment.
As part of the campaign, since October 2021, campaign symbols have appeared on the labels of the three most popular Herbapol brand jams, namely Strawberry, Raspberry and Redcurrant, encouraging consumers to independently assess the suitability of products for consumption using their own senses.
‘The slogan Look, Smell, Taste is a simple way to check whether we can safely enjoy the jam’s taste, even if the time limit for consumption indicated on the label has passed’, says Justyna Urbanek, brand manager of the Herbapol jam product category. ‘We are pleased that we have received an invitation to participate in this initiative, which will enable us to contribute to reducing the scale of food wastage in Poland. Jams seemed to us to be the ideal product to support the campaign; consumers often use just a part of the jar’s contents and after some time want to eat the rest, without being sure whether the product is still good. Yet it is worth using our senses to check whether we still can eat it. Additionally, on www.herbapol.com.pl, we have prepared some recipes using our jams, which may inspire consumers to use the jams not only as an addition to sandwiches or pancakes’, adds Justyna Urbanek.
Before deciding to join the initiative, we carried out tests in the control laboratory in Lubawa, where all the brand’s jam products are produced, which confirmed the safety of jams consumed after the expiry date.
‘Our jams undergo pasteurisation; this is a method of protecting food from deterioration. When buying pasteurised products closed in jars, it’s important to pay attention to the lid – as long as it is concave, the product is good for consumption because its packaging is airtight. If we have a jam at home after the date stated on the lid, but sealed, we can visually check whether its surface has no white spots indicating mould, smell whether it has no strange odour of fermentation and then try whether its taste is characteristic for the fruit used – if everything looks, smells and tastes right, then we can eat such a product without any worries. We also need to remember that once opened, we should store the products as indicated on the label, i.e. in a refrigerator’, says Joanna Kowalska, quality assurance coordinator at Herbapol-Lublin S.A.
More information about the ‘Often good longer’ campaign of Too Good To Go can be found at www.dobredluzej.pl
[1] https://bankizywnosci.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Banki-Żywności_-Raport-Nie-marnuj-jedzenia-2019.pdf
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food-waste/eu-actions-against-food-waste/date-marking-and-food-waste_en
