The Conscious Label: a good anti-waste idea.

Reduce food waste is a company goal

In fact, several of the products we are known for were created to recover leftovers and fight waste. Pudding, for example, was originally born as a recipe to recover leftover milk, with a little starch, sugar, and a little cocoa.

In order to achieve all the goals we have set out in our Sustainability Charter, we have launched 30 different sustainability projects. Five of these are aimed at reducing waste, for example. Over the years, we have already achieved high efficiency within the supply chain. Nevertheless, we have set a target to reduce waste by a further 25% by 2025.

Partnership with Too Good To Go

The partnership cameo established in 2021 with Too Good To Go - one of the most committed companies to promoting a healthy and sustainable approach to food consumption - responds to this priority. By signing this partnership, cameo chose to become part of an alliance made up of organizations, companies and supermarkets which consider it essential to drastically reduce waste at all levels of the agri-food chain through five different actions.

How Conscious Labels can help consumers

Conscious Label represents one of the most important initiatives promoted by this Pact. The goal is to help consumers better understand the subtle, but fundamental, difference between two terms found on food products:

• "to be consumed by" (expiry date) and
• "to be consumed preferably by / best before" (Date of Minimum Durability or DMD).

In the first case, the expiry indicates the date beyond which consuming the product can cause a risk to our health, while in the second it indicates the manufacturer's estimate of the period of best quality of the product and whose consumption does not represent a risk because it concerns the possible disappearance of some organoleptic properties such as taste, fragrance and appearance. This apparently harmless confusion, however, has a huge impact on our planet: studies show that 10% of food waste in Europe is attributable precisely to the incorrect interpretation of labels. And in Italy, 63% of consumers say they do not have clear ideas about the different interpretation to be given to these two terms.

Look, Smell, Taste - The "Often Good After"-Test

In this regard, ten million products have already been placed on the market with the "Often Good After" label, which invites consumers to observe, smell and taste the product that has passed the DMD, thus avoiding the waste of food that still can be consumed.

And we didn't want to be outdone. The wording "Often Good After" will be applied on various products of our Snack Friends range such as peanuts, pistachios, cashews and salty mixes, from small and practical single portions up to maxi-sizes.

Federica Ferrari, Executive Manager Corporate Communication at cameo, underlines the satisfaction for the company of being part of this project: