Report: world throws away 50% of all food

dissident · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 469

A lot of this food disposal occurs long before consumers go shopping. Due to marketing delusions, it is typical for two headed carrots and oddly shaped potatoes (for example) to never be offered for purchase. There was a report on this issue years ago on Canada's CTV and from what I can recall it was not the farmers doing the sorting.

Troyboy1208

I used to work for a grocery food chain. In the meat dept we threw away stuff that had "expired". There was nothing wrong with the meat. However management didn't want any issues about consumers getting sick. Alot of waste has been driven by the incredibly liability saturated world we live in. Its probably fine but throw it out just in case. In the produce department they waste about 50% of the overall produce. If its bruised or funny looking they throw it out. Consumers have almost no control over this.

killJOY · Fission Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 2510 Location: ^NNE^

Recently at the supermarket, I inquired about a barrel full of corn husks and other vegetable refuse that the store was going to throw out. I could feed them to the pigs and cows.

The clerk seemed very amenable to my taking the waste, "because we just throw tons of this stuff out every day." But he had to check.

He came back with the following missive from his "superiors": "We can't give that stuff away, because if your animals choke to death we could be sued."

Thus, into Olduvai Gorge we slide.
_________________
"By the time individuals discover that remaining resources will not be adequate for the next generation, the next generation has already been born. " David Price

Heineken

Not wasting food will not solve the problem of undernourished and starving people. Instead, it will actually increase their numbers.

There's no point in increasing the food supply if this only leads to more people and thus more demand for food and everything else and thus more damage to the underlying natural systems.

When, oh when, will we get a clue? The unifying issue is the vast and still-expanding size of the human population and its bottomless demands.
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother

JJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 07, 2007 Posts: 436

JJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 07, 2007 Posts: 436

killJOY · Fission Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 2510 Location: ^NNE^

blukatzen · Moderator Joined: Apr 11, 2005 Posts: 698

I live in Chicago, and there is a lot of waste at the bigger chain stores that are owned by Albertson's, I don't shop there. Too "glitzy" for me, and they are expensive.
I shop at a little mid-sized place, owned by 2 Greek men. (Greeks are either in the Restaurant or Produce business around here.)The business is called "Windy City Grocery" and they are well-loved. They are good with prices and have lots of ethnic vegetables for their many different nationalities that shop with them.
They offer reduced prices on the produce that is beyond "prime market" and package it up with others, and reduce the price, put it on a sales cart. People love this, who takes advantage of this is myself, (if I am not growing certain items myself) and students, seniors, and others on a buldget. (which is mostly everyone that shops there.) Bread comes in from bakeries, but gets ground up into pre-packaged bread crumbs for putting on food, or rolling onto breaded meat, etc. Nothing is wasted if they can help it. Of course Moldy items are thrown away, but with the aforementioned system, little gets to the moldy state.

Meat sales are projected, they have good basic cuts of meat and some ethnic meats (Halal and Polish and Spanish style sausages, for instance.)
If there isn't something available, they can get it for you, so expensive meats are not laying around with no possible customer to claim it, and needs be thrown away. You have to place orders for Turkeys during the Holidays. Same with the Spiral-cut honey hams. They don't..and can't afford to loose out.

They don't ask an arm and a leg for their produce, but they don't offer "organic" or other vegetables like that, which is the only drawback. There is another guy, "Stanley's", down about 3 miles from my house, that does, but he takes advantage of the uppity market that has become gentrified in his area, and his prices are out of sight. I'd rather shop at the local farmers' market in the Market season as an alternative.

These 2 old Greek men I know to be fair and honest. Wish there were more little guys like them. It's part of the "little neighborhood" in the big city some of us like.

Blu

joewp

lorenzo · Fission Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 2231

Ferretlover

MrBean · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Sep 26, 2004 Posts: 1292

Heineken

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 885

Heinecken, you're right, but itstill makes me angry if food is wasted in that way. If you grow your stuff yourself you know how much work it is. And industrialized farming is maybe less work but lots of inputs greenhouse gases etc. This should not be wasted. We could farm in a more sustainable way.

It makes me angry if the church run (!) childcare puts bins on the table were children can put their sandwiches they don't like. Or apples are cut that the whole middle is thrown away. People are so wasteful!

If you're brought up like this you will act the same way as a store manager.