It has been argued that too much food is wasted. Indeed, in the past, Japan has been tagged with the dubious distinction of being the world’s No. 1 squanderer of food on a per capita basis.
One of the causes of this, some suggest, has been rigid adherence to so-called shomikikan (literally a flavour period) that the law requires be stamped on most domestic and imported food packaging to indicate the best before period.
These indications, however, may vary considerably from products’ true expiration date, which depends on a number of factors including packaging and use of preservatives.
Needless to say, such attitudes are a legitimate concern to trading firms and wholesalers of imported food items that take more time to be transported to Japan.
In the weekly “be between” survey conducted by the Asahi Shimbun (10 October), readers were asked whether or not they discarded food items soon after the expiration of the shomikikan. A remarkably low 7% of the 2,392 valid responses said they did. The top two reasons for not doing so, as stated by the remaining 93%, are that the best before designation is wasteful (1,633 responses) and that there is “no problem, it’s safe for consumption” (1,154 responses). This was followed by “no noticeable difference in taste” (672 responses) and “prefer to decide the cut-off time by oneself” (612 responses).
The Asahi Shimbun noticed a considerable change in attitudes from six years ago; but it is well known from other surveys that during more difficult economic times, insistence on consumption of healthy foods tends to suffer.
Respondents were also asked how far past the consume-by date they are ordinarily willing to wait until they throw away a product. Within one week, said 30%, followed by two weeks (22%); one month (16%); three months (11%); and six months (5%).
A solid 94% said they generally do make a distinction between best before and expiration dates, and 66% said their family members were generally in accord about what to do concerning food expiration dates.
“If it smells funny, I’ll throw it away”, said a 51-year-old woman from Yokohama City. “Some seasonings might have expired a long time ago, but I keep using them. I wish there were some other criteria for deciding when a product should be disposed of”, she added.