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In the UK, 370,000 tonnes of food is misguidedly thrown away each year after passing its best-before date, with a further 40,000 tonnes not even opened by consumers. An additional 220,000 tonnes of food is thrown away while still in date and 440,000 tonnes of food is thrown away after its use-by date. And that is just the food that reaches our fridges and fruitbowls. There are an estimated 1.6 million tonnes of food thrown away by British retailers making up just some of the 5.4 million tonnes of food the UK throws away every year.

So where does all this confusion come from? According to one survey, more than one-third of Britons believe that any product past its 'best-before' date is liable to poison them and should never be eaten. Added to this confusion is the less than scientific way in which 'use-by' dates are often set with a 'worse case scenario' applied to all products, protecting the consumer but also the industry.

With dates now applied to all kinds of produce, from soft fruit to hard cheese, Tom Heap seeks to find out where these dates came from, who sets them, who benefits and how we might learn to live without them.