Expiry dates printed on food product labels have a lot to with food waste, according to Schmidt. “Too much food ends up in the trash, even though it’s still edible,” he told HuffPost Germany.

Schmidt, who belongs to the conservative Christian Social Union, became Germany’s agriculture minister in 2014.

His vision is for food products to use smart packaging that can inform consumers when it is no longer edible. A computer chip in a yoghurt-cup could measure if it’s still consumable, for example.