Waitrose Has Shortest Shelf Life, Which? Study Finds

A new investigation by the consumer group Which? has found that Waitrose delivers perishable food with the shortest average shelf life among major UK supermarkets, while Asda offers the longest. The study, published on August 18, 2026, concluded that online orders from Waitrose had an average remaining use-by date of just 7.7 days, in contrast to Asda's average of 11 days.

The research was conducted over a two-week period preceding the report's publication. Twelve mystery shoppers were recruited to place identical online orders for 29 fresh and perishable products from Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury's, Tesco, and Waitrose. In total, more than 2,000 items were ordered and delivered. Researchers calculated the average shelf life by measuring the full hours remaining from the delivery time until midnight on each product's use-by date.

Waitrose ranked lowest across several categories, including scones, bread, fresh pasta sauce, fresh tagliatelle, houmous, and pork sausages. The investigation highlighted instances where two packs of Waitrose beef mince and one pack of chicken thighs arrived with a use-by date expiring the very next day. Tesco had the second-shortest average shelf...