3 ms·
Like others have mentioned the big problem with your idea is grocery chains already do this to varying degrees, except the food goes to local food banks, homele
by zie 3y ago
Like others have mentioned the big problem with your idea is grocery chains already do this to varying degrees, except the food goes to local food banks, homeless shelters(that offer hot meals), etc.
Food Banks actually have a whole interesting economy they handle within themselves with "fake" money. It's pretty neat.
Grocery Outlet is the big chain that takes "waste" food and other smaller retail stores do the same thing(s).
It's not exactly the same as what you are talking about, as it's generally on the other side of the equation, it's all the "left over" food that never makes it to the grocery store, because the manufacturers over-produced, essentially.
Not all of the items are strictly near expiration, but a very large portion of them are near or past expiration in practice.
- ballenf 3y agoIn the US, food banks I've volunteered at had very strict food expiration policies and wouldn't (couldn't?) offer any food very near expiration. They threw out huge quantities of food. Also turned away even more donations for same reason. They were operating under federal funding, which the workers seemed to imply required the policy.
- zie 3y agoThat must be new (I haven't volunteered since Covid) or just not implemented at the ones I've worked with. The ones I worked with totally didn't care about things like that, and let the customers make their own decisions around taking an item or not. We would occasionally pick out totally rotten or fuzzy stuff. None of them had federal funding though. I regularly see past-expiration stuff at Grocery Outlet stores and other discount grocery stores like that still being sold.