Community Larder

[mf298]

We have a number of these in our area, taking in "waste" or out of date food from local supermarkets. Firstly, I can't get my head around the fact so much food is produced and then not consumed! I saw a figure of 15 million tonnes in 2015. Also wonder if the retailer claims some kind of brownie points for donating food while saving on disposal costs if it were to go to landfill.
Does anybody know any more about how this works, and why we have so much to dispose of.
Just to be absolutely clear I don't have any problem with food being distributed to the needy. Just can't get my head around why so much waste is factored into production and supply.

 

[Chae1]

It's because it's too cheap?

People don't care and throw it away.

 

[had e nuff]

It's because it's too cheap?

People don't care and throw it away.

Thats why it will be a long time until there are food shortages.
If it becomes short and more expensive then people will throw less away.

 

[roscoe erf]

It's because it's too cheap?

People don't care and throw it away.

Also sell by and use by dates are strictly adhered to in this woke world we live in

 

[Muddyroads]

We have the parish food bank based in our yard. They get quite a lot of donations from local supermarkets, especially Tesco’s. They tend to be sporadic but particularly high just after Christmas. Seemingly they deliberately over order to ensure they don’t run short of items and risk losing customers entire orders. As said, food is too cheap (or the margins are too high). This year they had loads of bananas and potatoes in particular. I’ve raised concerns before that they’re being used as an alternative free waste disposal service. I have no doubt it means the waste is not recorded as such.

 

[delilah]

Lady who helps us does a pick up every Friday evening from pret a manger of the unsold stuff, she is allowed to do it on condition that she allows the elderly and poor in her area to come to her house between 6 - 8 pm to help themselves, so it's quite a commitment on her part. She saves some salmon sandwiches back for us to have the next morning, which is nice, but you do have to wonder at a society that values salmon so cheaply that they consistently make more than they will sell just so that they don't sell out.

 

[mf298]

We have the parish food bank based in our yard. They get quite a lot of donations from local supermarkets, especially Tesco’s. They tend to be sporadic but particularly high just after Christmas. Seemingly they deliberately over order to ensure they don’t run short of items and risk losing customers entire orders. As said, food is too cheap (or the margins are too high). This year they had loads of bananas and potatoes in particular. I’ve raised concerns before that they’re being used as an alternative free waste disposal service. I have no doubt it means the waste is not recorded as such.

In our area there has been a lot of high value stuff over the festive season- 30 high value turkeys from one small M&S, hundreds of £ of fresh flowers from Aldi, I cpuld go on, just seems crazy!

 

[TheTallGuy]

We have a number of these in our area, taking in "waste" or out of date food from local supermarkets. Firstly, I can't get my head around the fact so much food is produced and then not consumed! I saw a figure of 15 million tonnes in 2015. Also wonder if the retailer claims some kind of brownie points for donating food while saving on disposal costs if it were to go to landfill.
Does anybody know any more about how this works, and why we have so much to dispose of.
Just to be absolutely clear I don't have any problem with food being distributed to the needy. Just can't get my head around why so much waste is factored into production and supply.

Obviously the supermarkets play the brownie points game for donations to food banks etc., but there's no great financial savings as food waste normally gets recycled either as animal feed or goes for AD/composting rather than landfill. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Tesco were using biogas from food waste in some of their trucks.

 

[Muddyroads]

There might not be financial savings, but I don’t mind betting that if they were quizzed about their food waste figures they’d very quickly have remarkably low numbers because of their donations. Once the food has been donated it’s not their problem, regardless of its quality or quantity.