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In my limited experience with one food-serving corporation, I found that their main issues were around quality. It is a very bad look to be serving unpalatable
by cartoonworld 3y ago
In my limited experience with one food-serving corporation, I found that their main issues were around quality. It is a very bad look to be serving unpalatable (but safe) food, period.
The thought is that since exceeding the expiration (or more accurately, the quality) date of the ingredients (for example, tomatos) renders the finished products as substandard in some way, its frankly kind of a dick move to serve food you wouldn't sell to paying hungry people to any hungry people let along poor hungry people.
Quality dates are a big part of spoilage in the food service industry, so the quality departments in all of these organizations try to min-max the dates to best represent their required quality, and of course their requirements are longevity, palatability and mostly sales.
If an otherwise reputable food retailer begins serving a secondary market with what is definitionally substandard products, it opens a large and murky doorway to liabilities extending far beyond a mere lawsuit. What if the next kitchen mishandles the food and serves gross food to people in need? Even hungry poor people will dislike week old, vinegary tomato slices.
There is also the possibility of cross contamination, but in general it is just best to avoid being one local news reporter away from revealing that FoodCo got $foo tax write off for serving mushy tomatoes to old people.
A better use of this resource would be to transfer the wasted or spoiled food to a facility which creates compost for local residents or farms.
- AlbertCory 3y agoYou are misinformed about donated food. I've helped a food bank guy load donated food from the Safeway. It is not substandard. Bananas, for instance, are donated if they have any spots. Bread is donated after a day, when it's perfectly edible. Also a lot of milk. Second Harvest is a good place to research, and they oversee my food bank. Strict food safety rules are enforced, and they donated a refrigerated van to us.
- cartoonworld 3y agoI am not misinformed, I was instead describing my experience with one corporation's reluctance to provide the food to food banks. One thing they were able to do is freeze their precooked egg patties that would have been thrown away for texture reasons for later use in a protein stock for a charitable kitchen's cafeteria in some way that I was not informed of. This corporation was a prepared food retailer, not a grocery store in case I have been too unclear. In their case they used nitrogen-packed presliced tomato pans to streamline food prep for their line, which is why I chose tomatos as the example.
- AlbertCory 3y agoYou said, "Quality dates are a big part of spoilage in the food service industry, so the quality departments in all of these organizations try to min-max the dates to best represent their required quality, and of course their requirements are longevity, palatability and mostly sales. If an otherwise reputable food retailer begins serving a secondary market with what is definitionally substandard products, it opens a large and murky doorway to liabilities extending far beyond a mere lawsuit. What if the next kitchen mishandles the food and serves gross food to people in need? Even hungry poor people will dislike week old, vinegary tomato slices." "the food service industry" : that term doesn't seem limited to prepared food retailers, if that's what you meant. as for "week old, vinegary tomato slices" : Second Harvest, at least, would outright reject those.
- cartoonworld 3y agoSorry to be misleading. Thank you for the information.
- AlbertCory 3y agono problem. Actually, I'm wondering who does take prepared food as a donation? It would have to go straight onto a table somewhere, since the shelf life would be almost zero.
- pbj1968 3y agoSecond Harvest is a very, very unfortunate name for those familiar with the habits of the Karankawas.
- AlbertCory 3y agoHad to look that one up. SH is huge, though. The big gorilla of Bay Area food banks.