Overview
- This week Which? used 12 mystery shoppers to place identical 29-item online orders with Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose and analysed more than 2,000 perishable items to measure remaining use-by hours.
- Which? calculated average remaining shelf life per retailer and found Asda highest at about 11 days and Waitrose lowest at about 7.7 days with Morrisons, Ocado and Sainsbury’s clustered around ten days and Tesco at 8.8 days.
- The report includes concrete short-dated examples such as two packs of Waitrose beef mince and a pack of chicken thighs arriving with use-by dates the day after delivery and Tesco items with as little as 3.4 days remaining.
- Supermarkets responded by defending their picking processes and pointing to customer remedies, with Ocado highlighting its Fresh+ life guarantee and other retailers offering refunds or replacements if customers are unhappy.
- Shorter shelf life on deliveries can force rushed meal plans, increase household food waste and reduce value for money, and Which? urged supermarkets to align their freshness promises with actual online picking and delivery practice.