What A Waste Of Food! ( Archived) (32)

After finishing grocery shopping at my local (major) supermarket today, I happened to pass by the store's dumpster bin in which had been left open, and noticed what must of been many dozens of loaves of bread and rolls of various varieties inside. These were all close to the top of the bin, and so leaves to speculation what other items beneath had been disposed of as well ?. No doubt this sort of wastage is a regular occurrence with this supermarket as well as others throughout the land
Like i'm sure in all countries, there's folk around who are battling to make ends meet for numerous reasons, and they would of gladly welcomed the opportunity of receiving free food ... or at least food that could be heavily reduced in price and made available for purchase instead of being thrown out as seems to of become the norm
This sort of sheer wastage by major supermarkets i find so very annoying and has put me off buying bread or rolls of any description at their regular prices ... or even slightly reduced prices come to that

Does anybody else have any food wastage experiences that they would like to share with us ?

There was a documentary on TV last year about groups of people who go out on late night supermarket bin raids, and some of the items they salvaged was incredible. Not just cheap groceries, but expensive items that were perfectly edible and still well within their use-by dates. Why the supermarkets didn't try making a little money from these unwanted items by putting them on sale, with the added advantage of attracting more shoppers to their store instead of losing out on possible sales ... well, that's something only they can answer.

There's a few issues at play here, and a lot of it is people's refusal to take personal responsibility. For example, somebody goes dumpster diving and ends up getting sick... They'll turn around and try to sue the shops for having their bins unlocked. Or they serve it to their friends who get sick, and then blame the brand of food causing reputational damage. When the shops heavily discounted stuff on saturday afternoon, knowing it wouldnt make it till monday, a lot of people only went saturday afternoon and there were physical altercations over it.

There are vans that collect excess produce to feed homeless people etc., helping them spend more money on alcohol and drugs and encouraging antisocial behaviour in parks.

Behind the scenes there's a lot of waste, like the recent pineapple glut. The price is so low it would cost the farmer to take them to market, and the juice company offers them less than the diesel would cost to deliver them, so they're left to rot in a pile.

You make some relevant points pat ... particularly in the case of those in the community who may use unscrupulous means to try and sue shops/manufacturers for injury or illness from the results of their dumpster raids.

Speaking of the recent pineapple glut you mention. To be honest, i never heard anything about that down here in Melbourne, but given the circumstances not surprised by the dumping .
In recent times there's been a bit of a fuss made over slightly out of shaped fruits and vegetables that were being dumped in large numbers. Even though there was nothing at all wrong with them other than their shape. I believe there's efforts now being made in the food industry in addressing this issue so as to make use of these "odd" fruits and vegetables by making them available to shoppers at discounted prices...
We'll have to wait and see how that pans out

They do it already here at woolies, marketing stuff as the odd bunch. I noticed it with carrots, and bought them instead. But one pack I bought had heaps of split ones, which I'd happily buy for juice but not roasting etc. so I went back to normal ones for now. I'm sure it will be a regular thing once they work it all out.

I did a season on the mangoes one year, I reckon for every one that ends up on a tray four are thrown away. If you have a contract with coles or woolies, they wont allow you to sell the rejects. this may have changed since then, I believe they no longer send produce down to Brisbane, only to be sent back through their distribution network.

Yeah I'm good with parsnip, nips, pat... somebody clever even called me spiney one time.