Curiously enough I was in the park today and struck up a conversation with some older fok and they were telling me about the days before WWII and how they would go to the bakeries and stock up on day old loaves of bread and broken pies and eat them.
I was in the grocer so I just asked one of the managers what they do with their day old stuff, he told me they won’t sell it as they can use the old bread in their deli section to make bread puddings and stuffings and they just donate the rest to homeless shelters cause they get a full price tax donation as opposed for selling it on the cheap for half or less.
I looked online and Hostess does have an outlet store but it’s way in the suburbs so I won’t be getting any old Twinkies as it’d cost more in gas than to buy fresh.
I even stopped by a bakery on my way home and asked, (bad move I bought a pie -LOL) and they too don’t sell anything but they just give all their old bread to homeless shelters.
I’m sure some areas must still have the “day old bread / mushed pies” for sale or is there a legal reason why they stopped? Or is it just more profitable to donate and take the tax write off
There is a day old Hostess/Wonder something like that near my house. They sell for about 1/2 of retail, and make a LOT of sales, so my guess is that they have enough profit to disregard the charity aspect.
Funny you should mention it, I stopped by the Wonder Bread outlet in Greenwood Indiana on the way home yesterday. Bought two loaves of Pullmann bread (the big 2lb loaves) for $1.10 each and two packages of fruit bars (Newtons - one blueberry and one strawberry) for $2.00 each.
There are a couple of other Wonder Bread outlets around central Indiana, the prices are better than at the stores but definately not low enough to go out of my way for.
Besides the aforementioned Hostess/Wonder Outlets around Indiana (which can have excellent deals on snack cakes if those are your thing-- they mark the packaging in a way that indicates how old it is, older packages are discounted more heavily), the Long’s Bakery locations here in Indianapolis sell day-old doughnuts, cakes, fritters, etc., at a pretty steep discount. My local Wal-Mart and Kroger both have what I call “dead bread” racks, rolling racks filled with specialty bakery goods (cakes, artisan breads, pies) discounted by 50+% that only have a few days left on their expiration dates. For some reason, they’re always kept next to the dairy coolers. Kroger also will tag their older store-brand bagged/sliced sandwich bread and tortillas with “Manager’s Special” labels, with UPCs that scan at half the price.
There is a Hostess Old Stuff store near me. I’ve never been in it, but I had an elderly client who would buy hohos/dingdongs etc by the carload to offer to black bears in her yard. On one trip to the store, she stopped at the veterinary practice where I worked and filled a vet tech’s car full of twinkies and hohos.
The tech was very overweight and when she saw her car filled with the snacks, she broke down crying, assuming it to be a cruel prank. After everyone at the office admitted to not being behind the prank, somebody thought of the old lady who always bought the expired Hostess stuff (all the items have a slash through the UPC with a black sharpie). A phone call explained it. She thought that since the tech was “a big girl” she must like sweets.
We don’t have a specific outlet store, but I frequently get marked-down bakery items from a rack by the door to the stockroom in my local grocery store. It’s all stuff that is at it’s sell-by date, and drastically marked down. I usually can get a loaf of bread for a buck or 3 donuts for 50 cents.
At both the Kroger’s I go to, there have a section with discounted bread that is marked down. I buy it frequently as I’ll either eat it that day or freeze it. Some of their gourmet breads are $4.00 regular price and $1.00 discount price.
There is an Orowheat/Entemann’s outlet store just a few blocks from where I work. Not only is the bread half the price of the grocery (with a better selection) but if you spend $7 you get something free from a double leftover rack, and you get a card that gives you two free things after you’ve spent $35. Never had a problem with spoilage. Some of the Entemann’s cakes last forever.
Does she really leave her car unlocked in the parking lot? Where can you do that these days?
Truly, that is sad…poor vet tech.
We have a Pepperideg Farm outlet around the corner, and Entenman’s was a few blocks away…that’s where we buy all the pastries for coffee hour at church. The stores will sometimes have a small rack of day-old stuff marked down by the bakery…it never lasts long and is usually sold out before I get there.
We had a Hostess or Little Debbie or one of those outlets and we’d buy every single little mini poundcake off the shelves. Mr. K was something of a “little cake” addict at one time, and I’d grab 20 or 30 at a time if I could.
Day olds are marked down the night before they are about to hit their sell-by date ( not expiration date, sell by. Items still have a good many days left on them.)
If they do not sell, they are scanned for throw away and tossed in the garbage.
There have been occaisions where I have personally tossed $400 worth of still very usable goods into a huge compactor.
The reason it isn’t given to charity is because sometime ago ( dunno when) when the stuff was given to local charities there were two problems. The local charities sometimes were late in picking up stuff and as a handler of food, we cannot hold onto something outdated like that for an extra day or two. The second, and it is more frivolous, but the Megastore can be sued if someone at X Charity chips a tooth or something less drastic on a day old. So our megahell chain stopped the practice.
Another thing this MegaHell does that tells me how much they have customers is make the employees move the Day Old Rack away from the bakery area ( convenient for everyone.) and move it to the back corner of the store by Dairy.
So now, all these old people have to totter to the outmost freekin’ parts of the store to save 40% on yesterday’s bread.
