One idea is for people like me. I am trying to raise my pigs to sell and for my own family. Animal feed is ridiculously expensive now but also the leftover food, a lot of it could be given to small farmers for their pigs.
Got it, my fault. Ok so, i can tell you from personal everyday experience. That this is happening. I am a Chef by trade, when I was working in private kitchens our waste isnât/wasnât enough for food banks to be concerned with, however pig farmers would take it.
I now work for a large retailer and manage a bakery. We have been voluntarily donating locally for years. With the recent ESG stock market monitoring, we are now doing it more because we need to turn in results of what we are doing. Poundage to food banks, poundage to pig farms, poundage of different recycling etc.
I know other retailers are doing the same thing. Some go to churches, food banks and homeless shelters.
I can tell you the problem is getting consistent pick ups and coordination from the food banks.
I consistently over produce on average $3k a week. Holidays I produce more, probably double that to capture increased sales. The food banks will not pick up after a holiday. We try to freeze it, but some things canât be frozen without destroying it, like salads from our deli department. Then if you freeze it, it can only be picked up by a refrierated truck. If its an item that required refrigeration to be sold, it can only be donated to a group with a refrigerated truck. These operators are very few and again wonât consistently pick up. Not to mention storing it in valuable space waiting for it to be picked up.
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When I was in high school, I created an environmental program called green future and it was all student lead and we contacted a recycling company and just put recycling bins at school- within my club I started âapples for animalsâ - the school required kids to pick a fruit on their tray and many days it would be in the garbage- I made bins and quickly they filled every single day and we drove them to the local animal sanctuary. I did it, but it was hard and when I graduated high school my club fell apart without me being there to run it- I think if we can make it more popular and government could possibly help give resources we may need it could be a great and easy new way of life. Food waste should be feeding animals and people!! Hundreds of pounds of food wasted anyway we should be using to help.
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There would have to be an âUnable to sueâ clause.
There have been cases where people have claimed that donated food has made them sick when there has been no evidence of that happening.
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We also need to end corporate waste. Companies will go through so much product and toss out product that isnt selling or has cycled out; i.e holiday dinnerwar, furniture, electronices etc⌠They fill dumpsters upon dumpsters of usuable product and they damage it so people canât dumpster dive and repurpose. Why is all of this going to waste when it could be donated to people who are less fortunate. There should be a program for that but instead our landfills are packed to the brim with brand new unused product. Such a shame.
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In all states this trend has been called Dumpster Diving and is practiced by people in poverty that seek gently damaged vegetables and fruits.
The major issue with this implemented program is that grocers and restaurants sometimes are asked to deliver to non-profits. They canât afford to do this.
In other cases the non-profit is sent a request to pickup the products and sometimes the issue is space set aside for the products, or cost of reboxing
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Agreed. Grocery stores and restaurants. They should be exempted of legal liability, but they should be required to donate any unused / leftover food.
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Being in retail I can tell you that it depends on the manufacturer or vendor. My company uses clearing houses for some stuff, meaning we sell it off and then itâs put up for sale in bargain bin stores or liquidators.
If the vendor demands it gets destroyed for credit, we have instructions to follow. Example: there were 2 kayaks returned in fairly new/good condition. At the time i was a Boy Scout leader and asked if they could be donated to the troop. The answer was no. The manufacturers instructions were to cut the nose of each kayak and ship the noses back for credit.
Books require the front cover be ripped off and returned for credit. The rest goes in the trash.
But yet pet food vendors want usable pet food donated to local animal rescue and just want signed donation paperwork.
So this not necessarily the end retailer that makes the final decision of what happens.
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Hopefully the rest of the kayaks went missing from the garbage and an anonymous benefactor donated them to your boys to rebuild.
There should be a program to encourage the freeze-drying of farm and grocery store surplus which should then be used as food assistance in homeless shelters, as a replacement to the EBT program, and the excess should be stored for times of emergency, both foreign and domestic. Additionally, stockpiles may one day become useful for space exploration efforts.
By freeze drying the food before it spoils, we would extend the shelf-life by years and make the subsequent logistics easier to achieve with little to no wasted food.
The government should buy the freeze dried food to incentivize participation in the program. Excess food stockpiles may also be sold to foreign countries to help fund the program.
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Good, Healthy food is being wasted. It can be distributed among communities where it is needed the most. Churches and food banks can help with the distribution.
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This sounds like more of a personal charity project, working out arrangements between those who make food and those who provide food to those in need.
Plastic hulls, not rebuildable. Also not worth a job loss
The Reason it is not practiced today is âHeath Department Regulationsâ and Liable. Most counties have regulations that prevent expired food from being given away. If itâs expired, itâs unedible is the philosophy. so 2 things have to change, the health department regulations & the ability to sue when eating free food
This is an awesome idea! I really hope something like this comes true.
They already do⌠or they donate what the programs take.
Harvesters and programs like them have more food donated every month than people coming to ask for it.
People donât think itâs Good Enough because it is near or just passing expiration, in some cases. But often it is overstock, or misorders that see a store loaded with say, 500 lbs of balogna they know they wonât be able to sell before it expires, so they donate it⌠and 250 families can get 2 lbs of the stuff along with farmer-donated fresh vegetables, and so on.
People just need to start taking advantage of the programs so they will start asking for more of what the stores are disposing of.
I wouldnât mind tax money going to some government funded box truck program that actively goes around collecting food from restaurants to take it to a central distribution hub.
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There are programs that do this already from the manufacturers. I wouldnât want to mandate it but how about just removing the law or regulations that make it illegal. That it can be a write off for those who do at a lesser percentage to avoid scamming.
I know that, where I live, Dollar Generals throw the almost expired foods in the dumpster. They do not even let the employees take it home, yet, the managers do. (This is not my experience, only what I have heard from numerous employees at different locations. ) I feel like, all of that food should be accounted for and if they are going to take it off the shelves, then donate it to a food bank. If they can inventory it to âthrow it outâ then they can inventory it to donation.
yes!