4 ms·
Produce is not a loss-leader. Pretty solid margins if you compare market prices on produce with what the supermarkets sell them for. And if you’ve been in any
by Reason077 3y ago
Produce is not a loss-leader. Pretty solid margins if you compare market prices on produce with what the supermarkets sell them for.
And if you’ve been in any UK supermarket near closing time on a busy weekend day, you’ll see that they routinely sell out of many/most items before restocking overnight. Stuff that hits its best-before date gets marked down to sell. Generally speaking, there isn’t a huge amount being wasted.
- klondike_klive 3y agoThe waste is externalised. Supermarkets regularly renege on their agreements with farmers, leaving millions of tonnes of produce to rot. Check out getfairaboutfarming.com
- Reason077 3y agoIt is certainly unfair to growers if supermarkets are reneging on purchase agreements. But the link you sent has just a single anecdotal "case study", and the site seems to be a marketing site for an organic food box supplier. Hardly by itself evidence of a systemic problem. Besides, if a purchase agreement falls though with produce already grown, normally what happens is the produce is sold on the wholesale market instead. In that case, growers might receive a lower price, perhaps resulting in a loss, but that's not as bad as leaving it "to rot" and getting nothing at all. Produce would typically only be dumped in the case of a huge market glut (when prices are so low that it is not even worth harvesting/transporting them), or if there are labour shortages making it difficult or uneconomical to harvest.