Canadians often blame grocery stores, food manufacturers or governments for food waste. Yet much of the waste occurs in our own kitchens, often for one simple reason: We misunderstand food date labels.

New survey data from the Agri-Food Analytics Lab in partnership with Caddle, based on responses from 3,000 Canadians, reveal that the vast majority of households continue to throw away food once it passes its use-by date. While only 11% of Canadians said they always discard food after the date has passed, another 20% do so often and 37% do so sometimes. In other words, nearly seven in 10 Canadians allow date labels to influence their decision to dispose of food.

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The findings expose a costly and largely preventable problem. What is perhaps most surprising is the generational divide.

Generation Z, often criticized for many things, appears to be the least wasteful cohort when it comes to date labels. Only 6.1% said they always throw away food after the use-by date, compared with 15.6% of generation X. More than a third of gen-Z respondents said they rarely or never discard food solely because of a date........

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