My father & uncle operated a wholesale grocery supplier that handled, among other things, Red Star Baker’s yeast. The drivers picked up expired packages, and brought them back to a box in the warehouse cooler. For 25 years, my mother used that outdated yeast in her baking (and she’s a really good baker). It worked fine, she just had to use more yeast to make it rise.
Then they retired, and sold the business. So Mom had to buy new yeast at the store. The first time she baked bread with that yeast, she used the amount she always did with outdated yeast. Interisting results! I thought the rising bread was going to take over the kitchen! It rose so big it overflowed the mixing bowl and actually pushed the oven door open! It took a while for her to adjust to using new yeast!
And I too ate a lot of cheese with the green spots cut off, soup from dented (but not bulging) cans, food from torn boxes, etc. Never hurt my appetite any.
Supermarkets throw away a lot of food long before the expiration date is passed just to make room on the shelves for the newly delivered food. They are generally willing to donate to food banks and shelters if the food bank staff will come and collect the food themselves, but the supermarkets won’t pay to deliver the food to the food banks.
My mom regularly volunteers for a local food bank, driving from supermarket to supermarket to collect surplus food. She has to use her own car and pay for gas herself. Other volunteers work at the food bank to sort and shelve the food and throw out anything that is expired.
I have seen something similar happen twice in my pizza days. Employee A was giving discounts to their friend X. Friend X comes in when employee A is not working demanding the same price that Employee A friend always gives them, even digging receipt. From a prior purchase out as evidence of the special deal they always get. Of course receipt is time and date stamped along with the cashier that was logged in. Employee A was promtly fired for his generosity.
Businesses rarely view self styled robin hood employees, giving out freebies based on their personal whims rather than any policy, as good things. The employee who reported him did her job. Run a business for a while, a couple employees like her can save your ass a hundred times over.
If the homeless family in question was worried about Askia’s generosity continuing they would have sought a meal elsewhere when he did not appear with the trash, I doubt it was the first time he missed a day in several weeks. Instead, they pointed out that someone else had been doing them this favor, expecting another employee to cave. If the homeless person in question had just asked for a hand out and left when rejected, Askia would not have been fired.
Before you start painting me as a heartless cretin, we did on several occasions in my pizza days give no show pizzas to homeless people that came in. Our manager only had one rule. If you recognize him, as someone you have a handout to before, the answer is no, even if you have a whole warmer full of no shows. This was to keep homeless people from seeing us as a steady meal ticket and coming in all the time. Exactly the situation that Askia ran into.
It seemed to work, no homeless people making regular appearances, and a few people in need got fed.
My daughter has made several medical mission trips to Central America.
The pharmaceutical manufacturers via their distributers make out of date products available in very generous amounts for taking on these trips. Any leftovers from the clinics operated by the mission group is given to the hospital(s) in the city of departure.
The expiration date on medicals is conservative so no likelhood of problems.
Based on the personality of the homeless woman whom I gave food, I would be shocked if she “demanded” anything on my night off. She was a very humble type, fairly religious and always grateful for extra help ANYONE could give her. She told me she was staying at the woman’s shelter farther down the street from Taco Bell but her meal allowance wasn’t always enough for her and the kids. Granted, it could have happened they way drachillix suggested, but I tend to doubt it. She wasn’t a pest. She never asked for money. The kids were cute.
The girl who sold me out to my asshat manager was an asshat, too. She could have refused the woman. She told on me because she wanted me to get fired or quit so she can have my hours. It worked.
To be perfectly fair to my asshat embezzling manager, he didn’t really fire me on the spot. He asked my side of the story, warned me to stop doing it, and got up in my face. I refused to promise to “stop giving away the trash.” (The way I put it) so then he fired me. He’s still an asshat for the bleach.
I apologize to Dopers and moderators for overuse of the word “asshat” in connection with that anectdote.
I wouldn’t help anyone homeless who came into the store begging for food – especially men. It happened and I always refused. I have limits to my generosity and boundaries you don’t overstep.
But there is still an enormous about of wasted food in this country.
San Francisco has a program where it collects food waste from businesses and homes so it can be composted and turned into soil, rather than eternally jammed into the landfills.
A division of the local garbage service handles the composting and sells it to farms, vineyards, golf courses and the public.
I remember when I was in highschool a lunchlady told me that all the food that the kids didn’t eat was thrown away and could not be donated to any kind of charity because it was funded by the government and peoples taxes or something like that.
