Reply to: Bin divers

[d000hg]

75-95% off is pretty attractive.

many foods sold are viable for a few more days but have nearly passed their best before date.

Lunch the other day was a nice curry from Lidl at 20p as sell by was that date. I was buying toys and saw a cheap lunch.

Fresh stuff tends to have Use By which they're not legally allowed to sell past, while we will eat things a day or two past I'm told these dates are for safety reasons rather than cosmetic. Of course most things can be frozen so we frequently get a box of chicken and so on and most goes into the freezer that day.
The stuff supermarkets give to charities like the above is presumably shipped at least one day before the UB in order for them to turn it around, so the shops must be pre-emptively taking it off the shelves. Presumably because they have the next load due in the warehouse and they have to make room. In order to always have everything in stock (heaven forbid you can't find your chosen ready meal!), they have to basically over-order - convenience implies wastage.

[vetran]

They do, but there is far too much - have you never seen the scrummage at the reduced aisle? When you consider the razor thin profit margins supermarkets operate on, your argument doesn't really work. People want food with several days on the shelf life, and when you're doing your weekly shop you just want to get in and out. Not to mention the huge upsurge in online shopping.

75-95% off is pretty attractive.

many foods sold are viable for a few more days but have nearly passed their best before date.

Lunch the other day was a nice curry from Lidl at 20p as sell by was that date. I was buying toys and saw a cheap lunch.

[d000hg]

They also throw away tons of products that go out of date. Instrad they could put them at reduced price and people will adapt and make meals out of those.

but that would affect their bottom line so it is a no go.

They do, but there is far too much - have you never seen the scrummage at the reduced aisle? When you consider the razor thin profit margins supermarkets operate on, your argument doesn't really work. People want food with several days on the shelf life, and when you're doing your weekly shop you just want to get in and out. Not to mention the huge upsurge in online shopping.

[SueEllen]

That's true, and wonky fruit and veg with indentations and dodgy parts may be harder to effectively rinse. So avoiding them not just about misguided aesthetics.

That's the type of fruit and veg - class 2 and rarely class 3 - that I use to buy from market stalls. Then the stall rental prices were put up in the 00s so now the owners sell class 1 produce at virtually the same price as supermarkets.

[OwlHoot]

I'd rather buy a beautiful straight carrot than 2 weird wonky ones, easier to peel.

That's true, and wonky fruit and veg with indentations and dodgy parts may be harder to effectively rinse. So avoiding them not just about misguided aesthetics.

[GigiBronz]

They also throw away tons of products that go out of date. Instrad they could put them at reduced price and people will adapt and make meals out of those.

but that would affect their bottom line so it is a no go.

it’s never about being green. That’s just the message for the numpties while they get charges 20p for a bag and have to be grateful for it.

go green!

[d000hg]

What we've seen from knowing the people in the story is that while a lot of supermarket 'rubbish' is stuff with only a day or two left on the use-by date, they also throw loads away that has weeks or even months left. Frequently high-end stuff.

We subscribe to their "waste not" box which started off as a weekly grocery box - mainly fruit and veg - these days we often get steak, Pasta Evangelist, Gu desserts. I think they do hundreds of these boxes a week plus catering plus feeding the homeless plus running a cafe... and all from free stuff.

[ladymuck]

...So if the supermarket wastes, X amount of food, the restaurants waste Y and the customer wastes Z by not eating it all I'd love to know what X+Y+Z is as a percentage of the food produced. We must only actually consume a surprising low amount of what is actually produced.

In theory, no-one should be going hungry and no-one should be struggling to eat good food as there's plenty enough to go around. Sadly, a combination of fear of litigation and greed means food gets chucked rather than distributed.

[northernladuk]

As a cheeky apprentice I spent many a happy hour gaffa tapped up in the canteen food waste skip over lunchtime back in the days where the H&S officer was one of the people applying said gaffa tape and helping hoist me in the skip.. ah the good old days, but I digress. The amount of food wasted from the canteen alone was an eye opener. So if the supermarket wastes, X amount of food, the restaurants waste Y and the customer wastes Z by not eating it all I'd love to know what X+Y+Z is as a percentage of the food produced. We must only actually consume a surprising low amount of what is actually produced.

[d000hg]

Because we've all been told that food has to be pretty and only cheap people eat wonky food. It's all effed up in my view.

I'd rather buy a beautiful straight carrot than 2 weird wonky ones, easier to peel.

[ladymuck]

Market forces. If they sell both side by side for the same price, everyone will take the pretty ones.

Because we've all been told that food has to be pretty and only cheap people eat wonky food. It's all effed up in my view.

[d000hg]

Unless you need to present the food in a particular way, once the veg is chopped up it looks and tastes exactly the same so why should it be cheaper? It costs the same to produce.

Market forces. If they sell both side by side for the same price, everyone will take the pretty ones.

[ladymuck]

Unless you need to present the food in a particular way, once the veg is chopped up it looks and tastes exactly the same so why should it be cheaper? It costs the same to produce.

[SueEllen]

Sainsburys and Morrisons have been selling class 2 veg for a while now. I managed to get a large bag of avocados from Morrisons for a couple a quid a few times. I didn't notice it was odd shaped until I got it home. However with some of the veg the price isn't cheaper so why are you going to buy it?

[ladymuck]

That's pretty cool, to know you've effected a decent level of change in that way.

Whilst households are regularly lambasted for their levels of food waste, the supermarkets are just as bad. The other 'scandal' is the supermarket's claim that the public only want perfect fruit and veg, forcing farmers to dump loads of less than perfect stock. The meagre bags of 'wonky veg' you occasionally see are just paying lip service to solving the problem.