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It's the same at grocery stores, packing places and the farms. Food is wasted at each step along the process. I know grocery throw out a ton of food. There'd al

It's the same at grocery stores, packing places and the farms. Food is wasted at each step along the process. I know grocery throw out a ton of food. There'd always be at least a shopping cart full a week of expired stuff that got thrown out when I worked in one. Some stores around here will leave old produce outside for people to take as animal feed, but the one I worked at did not. I imagine it's much the same at the packing and shipping places.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Wait, a shopping cart a week? And how many full shopping carts got sold in that week? 1000? This sounds like better than 99.9% efficiency. Where did I figure wrong?
- grawprog 6y ago
  That was just from general grocery. I'm not sure how much the meat and bakery threw out but their garbage bins were always full of food. The produce department threw out boxes of fruits and vegetables daily. The dairy department probably threw out the least just because they ordered the least stock at one time.
  - smegger001 6y ago
    having worked at a large busy walmart in multiple fresh departments (bakery, deli and produce and a little in meats), there is a lot of waste in volume but compared to a through-put its not so bad. And a lot of it is because of customers. Anything that leaves cold chain is unsellable, so when a customer changes their mind and decides not to buy something it gets disposed of (meats are sent for rendering, produce an baked goods are composted.) I once sliced about $80 worth of a premium deli ham for a customer just to have them leave it on a shelf next to the refrigerator bunker that the presliced cheap hams were in. It was found by a grocery stocker and brought back warm a few hour later. I produce we threw away tons about half was out of dates the rest is damaged (distribution center put 50 lbs sack's of potatoes on top of berries, 40 boxes of onions on top of cardboard trays of tomatoes) or out of cold chain (customer leaves bagged salad laying around the store) the worst is when we would get sent "guac ready" avacados... (were ready to eat last week but are snot pods now)

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Wait, a shopping cart a week? And how many full shopping carts got sold in that week? 1000? This sounds like better than 99.9% efficiency. Where did I figure wrong?

grawprog 6y ago
That was just from general grocery. I'm not sure how much the meat and bakery threw out but their garbage bins were always full of food. The produce department threw out boxes of fruits and vegetables daily. The dairy department probably threw out the least just because they ordered the least stock at one time.
- smegger001 6y ago
  having worked at a large busy walmart in multiple fresh departments (bakery, deli and produce and a little in meats), there is a lot of waste in volume but compared to a through-put its not so bad. And a lot of it is because of customers. Anything that leaves cold chain is unsellable, so when a customer changes their mind and decides not to buy something it gets disposed of (meats are sent for rendering, produce an baked goods are composted.) I once sliced about $80 worth of a premium deli ham for a customer just to have them leave it on a shelf next to the refrigerator bunker that the presliced cheap hams were in. It was found by a grocery stocker and brought back warm a few hour later. I produce we threw away tons about half was out of dates the rest is damaged (distribution center put 50 lbs sack's of potatoes on top of berries, 40 boxes of onions on top of cardboard trays of tomatoes) or out of cold chain (customer leaves bagged salad laying around the store) the worst is when we would get sent "guac ready" avacados... (were ready to eat last week but are snot pods now)