Shoppers are deliberately seeking out deals whereby retailers sell off stock that is about to hit its sell-by date.

It is being called savvy shopping, because it is a way of making real savings on the weekly shop.

A study by Empathy Research for Checkout magazine has found that more than a third of shoppers (36%) regularly visit a supermarket at the end of the day in an attempt to cash in on short sell-by date deals.

The survey of 1,000 shoppers found that more women (39%) than men (33%) engage in the practice.

And the biggest group of bargain hunters are in the 55+ age group. Mature consumers are more likely (44%) than other age groups (25% of 18-24 year olds, 31% of 25-34 year olds, 38% of 35-44 year olds and 35% of 45-54 year olds) to seek out short date products. 

They have long known what others are now only cottoning on to - there is nothing that prevents you from eating food that has gone past its best before date.

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It is the use-by date you should be worrying about.  Typically, a ‘use by’ date is applied to fresh, ready-to-eat and chilled foods such as yogurt, milk, meat, unpasteurised fruit juices etc.

Where to draw the line is entirely a personal judgement.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland meanwhile says food that is past its best before date may just have lost some of its best qualities, like smell and taste.

There are even online store that specialise in out-of-date stock. Approved Food in the UK is one of them. Customers can order their food from the website before sitting back to wait for their delivery.

Food waste

We throw away about a third of the food we buy in Ireland.

If you buy something that has a short use by date you are also more likely to remember to use it quickly because you will have studied the product information.

Often food waste is caused by forgetting what we have in the fridge. 

In Britain, £12 billion worth of good food was being thrown out every year until a rule change in 2011 cut out sell by date stamping.

In the Irish survey, 58% of respondents said they were concerned about food waste. Women (63%) were more likely than men (53%) to cite this as a concern.

Commenting on the findings, Iseult Ward, co-founder of FoodCloud, a group established to redistribute surplus food to charities, said she was encourage by the high level of awareness around wasting food: "In Ireland, we waste over 1 million tonnes of food every year and up to 60% of this is avoidable."

In the last 12 months, working with over 150 businesses, FoodCloud has redistributed over one million meals to charitable groups across Ireland.

There is an important message for retailers in all of this - Empathy Research's survey showed that almost one in ten people said they would be more likely to shop at a particular supermarket if they knew it donated food to charity. 

This week supermarkets will have an opportunity to engage with food producers at the Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co. Laois.

Leading supermarkets Lidl, Aldi, SuperValu and Tesco all have stands at the event, which hopes to attract some 200,000 visitors.