"99.99% of it went into the garbage at Metro Market. I never saw anything that was donated while I was working there. It might be different now, but for the year I worked there nothing was really donated. At Sendiks I really didn’t see anything donated. "
"Yes, some food was still good when thrown away. It was my job to make sure that didn't happen, and that everything was used even if you had to cut around a bad spot. Shrink is impossible to eliminate completely, but it can be controlled and reduced."
"At Andronico's Community Markets in California, not all of the apples are perfectly round and shiny. In fact, some are blemished or oddly shaped, while others are a half-inch smaller than the standard size. These imperfect apples aren't priced like their wax-fruit-looking counterparts, either, retailing for 69 cents a pound, instead of $1.50." (What A Waste!)
Due to political reasons, I was unable to take photos at any location.
Expired Foods: Waste in Area Grocery Stores
What A Waste!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/deenashanker/ways-to-waste-less-food?bffbfood
"By reducing food sent to landfills or incinerators, grocers can save money, reduce their environmental impact, and help those in need. "
EPA
General Manager/Pricing Coordinator
We donate all sorts of things!
Incentive not to donate?
"Credit for damaged or expired food that is brought in by our vendors – if the product goes out of date or say might be physically damaged – ripped or cut open – our vendor will credit us back – it goes back to our account balance."
"We do not give product to a food pantry – we have donated it in the past such as canned goods to the Food Pantry. We give day old bakery (where many store sell it on a reduced cart – we do not) mostly to the rescue mission or churches. They come and collect this twice weekly – there are times when we give them very ripe fruit (I might note that we do have reduced produce that we sell here)"
Flour Power
The Daily Table
Mission & Mantra
- Doug Rauch- expired food store outside of Boston
- Steep discounts (tax-deductible donations)
- Urban Food Initiative
"Although I do not have specific details, I do know certain restaurants and other bakeries do donate food at the end of the day. It is a really positive thing to do on both levels - feeding people who are in need and helping to eliminate some of the food waste that occurs. "
Produce Manager
Shrink the Shrink
East Pointe Pick N Save- Sustainable
"The deli uses about a case and a half of green leaf lettuce a week and about 2 cases of tomatoes a week. Instead of giving them the fresh stuff that just came in off the truck, we would make them take the stuff that was a day or two old since they were using it right then and there."
"I had all my employees take a box under their cart to toss the expired or damaged product in, and at the end of the day I would determine what to do with it all. The goal, naturally, is to have the least amount of shrink as possible but still have some. Having no shrink means you're missing out on sales, but that's an entirely different conversation."
Produce Clerk/Deli Clerk
Low End vs. High End Stores
Toss it Out
"At Sendiks, unlike Roundys, we could take reduced produce, so stuff that was expiring that day or stuff that may have been expired for a day, but it still looked good, we could discount it for half off. Otherwise you mostly just chucked stuff."
"If a couple blackberries go bad, it can spread very easily to the others. At this location this is a lot of what it was like; we would run out of product or we wouldn’t have enough because sometimes the stuff that we got shipped to us was already expired."