6 ms·

Unexpired food in grocery store dumpsters

16 points by picture 5y ago

JoeyBananas 5y ago
When working in any kind of restaurant or grocery store, food waste is so common that you can get desensitized to it easily. This is not really a bad thing, it's necessary in order to maintain quality
- Minor49er 5y ago
  Exactly. Many stores have been donating their recently-expired goods to nonprofits like Second Harvest. In one of the videos, she claims that the items were thrown away before they reached their expiration dates (maybe due to being left unrefrigerated?), but in other ones, you can clearly see that they have red tags on them, which looks like they were in some kind of markdown area. So I think there's more to this than what's being claimed by the OP's title.
- mcaravey 5y ago
  At the bakery I run we have to make a small number of extras of each product to account for issues (e.g. malformed roll, dropped on the floor while packing, sliced incorrectly, etc.). When we first investigated places to donate the edible excess products, most places wouldn’t accept it, were only open one day a week, required us to deliver the excess during the four hour window they accepted donations, and so on. As a result a lot of stuff goes to the trash, and is treated as the cost of goods sold. It sucks, but to avoid that we’ve got our in-house software dialed in to avoid as much waste produced as possible and we donate the excess whenever we can.
mcbishop 5y ago
I've pulled so much pristine organic produce out of grocery-store dumpsters. It's been a very satisfying urban-foraging pastime. Nightshift employees smile and wave at me. Consider trying it.
anamax 5y ago
An unexpired turkey that has not been safely stored is far more dangerous than an expired turkey that has been safely stored. A dumpster is NOT safe storage for a turkey. I've seen damaged turkeys in stores; I hope that they throw them out, regardless of expiration date.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
Highly recommend the documentary “Just Eat It” about a Vancouver couple who live off of only what they can source through dumpster diving for six months. https://youtube.com/watch?v=KUHdTDwdq8U https://youtube.com/watch?v=KUHdTDwdq8U https://foodwastemovie.com/about/ https://foodwastemovie.com/about/
imtringued 5y ago
The sad reality is that the supply chain from farmer to whole sale to grocery store is incredibly optimized but the way back isn't. You'd have to check every single item if it is safe to eat or not. Also, the bigger grocery stores like Walmart are basically a warehouse for food with checkout. There's bound to be some (process induced) waste. It's how the stores are set up. There was a Zeit article about reporters putting a GPS tracker into shoes they RMA'd. The shoes were "recycled" immediately. They can't sell RMA goods as brand new even if they are barely used. If they did, then some customer will give them a bad review and ruin the brand.

16 points by picture 5y ago

When working in any kind of restaurant or grocery store, food waste is so common that you can get desensitized to it easily. This is not really a bad thing, it's necessary in order to maintain quality

Minor49er 5y ago
Exactly. Many stores have been donating their recently-expired goods to nonprofits like Second Harvest. In one of the videos, she claims that the items were thrown away before they reached their expiration dates (maybe due to being left unrefrigerated?), but in other ones, you can clearly see that they have red tags on them, which looks like they were in some kind of markdown area. So I think there's more to this than what's being claimed by the OP's title.
mcaravey 5y ago
At the bakery I run we have to make a small number of extras of each product to account for issues (e.g. malformed roll, dropped on the floor while packing, sliced incorrectly, etc.). When we first investigated places to donate the edible excess products, most places wouldn’t accept it, were only open one day a week, required us to deliver the excess during the four hour window they accepted donations, and so on. As a result a lot of stuff goes to the trash, and is treated as the cost of goods sold. It sucks, but to avoid that we’ve got our in-house software dialed in to avoid as much waste produced as possible and we donate the excess whenever we can.

mcbishop 5y ago

I've pulled so much pristine organic produce out of grocery-store dumpsters. It's been a very satisfying urban-foraging pastime. Nightshift employees smile and wave at me. Consider trying it.

anamax 5y ago

An unexpired turkey that has not been safely stored is far more dangerous than an expired turkey that has been safely stored. A dumpster is NOT safe storage for a turkey. I've seen damaged turkeys in stores; I hope that they throw them out, regardless of expiration date.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

Highly recommend the documentary “Just Eat It” about a Vancouver couple who live off of only what they can source through dumpster diving for six months. https://youtube.com/watch?v=KUHdTDwdq8U https://youtube.com/watch?v=KUHdTDwdq8U https://foodwastemovie.com/about/ https://foodwastemovie.com/about/

imtringued 5y ago

The sad reality is that the supply chain from farmer to whole sale to grocery store is incredibly optimized but the way back isn't. You'd have to check every single item if it is safe to eat or not. Also, the bigger grocery stores like Walmart are basically a warehouse for food with checkout. There's bound to be some (process induced) waste. It's how the stores are set up. There was a Zeit article about reporters putting a GPS tracker into shoes they RMA'd. The shoes were "recycled" immediately. They can't sell RMA goods as brand new even if they are barely used. If they did, then some customer will give them a bad review and ruin the brand.