Is it 100% reused, or is it thrown away?
I’d imagine some of it goes to soup kitchens, some of it ends up as animal feed.
How much perishible food (i.e. bakery items, milk, fruits, veggies) is unsold?
When I worked at Meijer(a huge grocery store chain in the mid-west), we threw away tons of our bakery food every day. I would see apple pies that were only a few hours old be thrown away, thinking, “Can’t we just give this food to the poor or sell it off cheaply to the staff?”
Nope, they tossed all of it.
I asked about this in a local ‘bakery’ (ie fast-food pastry) once - they had a daily collection for unsold fresh produce, which would be processed into pig food.
It made their pork pies even less appealing.
I don’t know if they still do it but the last I heard Giant Supermarkets (Ahold) here in Md. let the various groups who feed the homeless gather the unsold foodstuffs from their distribution centers.
Giant did this because folks were climbing into their dumpsters to get at the food that Giant tossed.
My company trashes all past date[or even close-to-date], stale and otherwise unsellable items. It breaks my heart to see what goes down the chute to the dumpster[all the breads and rolls are the real kicker] We’ve never been told specifically, but I believe the reason they don’t give it to charities is because of liability problems if someone gets sick from the food.
Part of it is that it is just a public relations nightmare. It kind of comes off as “This food isn’t safe or good enough for real people, but those animals out in the alley can have it”. So it’s easier to throw away, then give to the homeless.
I work for Food Services at a major university in Ontario. All unused food is thrown away at the end of each meal. The people we could feed we our food garbage, just at my outlet alone, is insane. My estimate for food waste at our outlet daily would be between 40-70 lbs daily; and that’s just food making into the dishroom for waste, much more is just thrown out in the kitchen and at the serving stations.
Ture; a small amount is saved to be recycled. However, it pales in comparison with the amount that could be either reused or donated.
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- At the store that I work at, stuff that has expired or spoiled gets thrown away, no matter what it is. Items that are cosmetically damaged get returned to the warehouse where I understand that those that are still edible do get distributed to charity somehow, but I don’t know the details of how that’s done. The store does have a cart or two of items with minor cosmetic damage that they mark down for in-store customers to buy, but they end up with far more than that–most of it gets sent back. I can say that only dry and canned goods get sent back–no produce, frozen, meat or dairy at all, all that gets trashed–because the pallet of stuff (usually ~3 feet tall, three layers of banana boxes stacked 8-per-layer) that they return about every week or so is returned on a regular truck, with no refridgeration.
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- At the store that I work at, stuff that has expired or spoiled gets thrown away, no matter what it is. Items that are cosmetically damaged get returned to the warehouse where I understand that those that are still edible do get distributed to charity somehow, but I don’t know the details of how that’s done. The store does have a cart or two of items with minor cosmetic damage that they mark down for in-store customers to buy, but they end up with far more than that–most of it gets sent back. I can say that only dry and canned goods get sent back–no produce, frozen, meat or dairy at all, all that gets trashed–because the pallet of stuff (usually ~3 feet tall, three layers of banana boxes stacked 8-per-layer) that they return about every week or so is returned on a regular truck, with no refridgeration.
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There are some stores that specialize in odd lots, discontinued products, and outdated foods. My mother-in-law used to shop at one of these stores. She was very proud of her thriftiness. I learned the hard way to never eat anything she offered, ever.
Out of curiousity, I went to the store that she bragged about finding. There were outdated dairy products (yogurt and cheese, mostly), ancient bottles of soda (Mello Yello, anyone?), a lot of candles which had partially melted, individual packets of condiments, and a huge open bin of dry dog food which was probably a rat’s delight. See, when a huge bag of dog food breaks, they saved the stuff, and put it in this bin, so you had all sorts of dog food mixed up.
I wouldn’t mind the ancient soda, but there’s a REASON for expiration dates on most foods.
I used to work as a banquet server in college, and after the banquet, we were allowed to eat the unserved food. Since I lived and ate at home, this wasn’t such a big deal for me, but I imagine that this made a big difference for a lot of the kids working those jobs.
When we lived in Florida, we used to go to the day old bakery store and buy bread and other bakery goods. They stocked that store from the left over bread and goods from the markets. Day old bread is just as good and it cost us less than half the market price and it doesn’t get stale in the days following purchase either.
Most of the big grocery chains out here have huge enclosed compactors instead of dumpsters to keep people from diving for the mostly ok food. I work for a greeting card chain and even when seasonal plates and napkins are cycled out they get written off by a supervisor and tossed into the compactor. It really makes me sad because you could donate that to a school or church or something. It’s not like someone’s going to get sick off a napkin because it has snowflakes in July or something.
If you ever get me to eat a pork pie, I’ll eat my hat!
When I worked for Dining Services at my college, this is the reason we were given as to why the food was not donated.
Around here, older bread and stuff from Wonder and Entemanns goes to the local Wonder Bread outlet store. People can buy stuff that’s about to expire for half off or so. (I freeze most of this stuff anyways, so it’s very nice for me.)
Our local food bank is very effecient at gathering and distributing unsellable food from stores and restaurants. However, unsold tofu is used as stucco in Happycats for Humanity homes.
What’s wrong with Mello Yello? I drink it if there’s not any Sun-Drop handy.
I worked for a major-chain supermarket while going to college, and we threw out tons of old bread. The managers let me take some home, and I used most of it to feed fish and turtles in a canal behind the house.
I worked at a couple of restaurants back in college, and they all had a policy against employees taking perishable food home at the end of a shift. In particualar, I cut up the fresh salad greens at one of these places, and every day we threw out a few gallons of lettuce at the end of the day. I asked if I could bag up some of the greens and take them home to make a salad, and they said I couldn’t.
The reason, they said, was that if you allow staff to take home unused food, they will make more than they need on purpose, to be sure they’ll be something to take home.
I recently volunteered at the Atlanta Food Bank, which was an amazing and educational experience. They act as a distributor to local food shelters and other charity groups around the state. Basically, it seems that the major grocery chains, smaller stores, distributors, and groups doing food drives and such ship boxes upon boxes to this place (banana boxes are used). We were part of a large group that sorted through the donations, throwing away foodstuffs that were past a certain date (we were told to go back a year for the sort date for most foods, as it is still ok). We also threw away dented and leaking cans, and repaired torn boxes. We would also sort the items into categories like canned food, stuff to drink, OTC drugs/cosmetics, paper products, etc. There were a lot of guidelines, and a lot of stuff was thrown away for various (and good) reasons. The sorted boxes would then be shipped to the smaller food pantries/shelters around the state. So that’s what happens to some grocery store food that doesn’t sell. I believe, as well, the Nash Finch company runs their own food reclamation centers for their stores.
As for prepared food, such as from restaurants and especially catering companies, the Atlanta Food Bank runs the Atlanta’s Table program, which takes extra prepared food to soup kitchens that same day. Quite a program, and one of few, if not the only right now, that deals with prepared food on a large scale.