Why do grocery stores and restaurants throw away perfectly good food? Why don’t they save it and donate it to a company or charity who can give it to those who need it? Is there even such a company in Nova Scotia? Seriously, if there is, I want to know.
Why are we okay with letting this slide? Why are grocery stores saying “If we donate it, we’ll get sued?” What they should be saying is, “We’re doing nothing to help, what does that make us?” But they’re NOT, and we’re OKAY with this. WHY??
—Worried for Hungry Nova Scotians
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2009.
I think they do it because if the food is bad and makes someone sick, they’ll get sued. Generally, someone who gets a bit of food poisoning and throws up for a day will try to sue big companies for a lot of money. Looks bad and costs the company money. I wish they’d donate too. Drives me crazy when I see the staff at Tim Horton’s tossing out dozens of perfectly good muffins and donuts. I used to study at Tim Horton’s every night around midnight-1am and the staff would always give me free donuts and muffins that they were going to throw out. They’re not allowed to do that anymore and they just toss them into a big green bin. Such a waste.
I think there was an initiative to send muffin bottoms to the food bank but there was such a backlash it was abandoned and the muffintop cafe went out of business.
Okay, no need to be facetious.
I’m seriously asking you guys if there are any programs out there.
And if not, besides the threat of being sued, does anyone know why?
I used to work at Tim’s…I literally got very disgusted when i had to throw out a green bin full of perfectly good muffins and donuts, knowing that there are soooo many hungry people. It pisses me off. But, in all reality, just because someone is poor doesnt make them humble and a good person. There are a lot who will fake sick just to get money.
If Tim’s didn’t make more crap than they could sell there’d be Bitches about people not getting their favorite dognut whenever they pop into Tim’s, right?
Well, I’d personally like to bitch about the lack of proper chocolate croissants in Tim Horton’s for the last 5-6 years, but I think that would be facetious.
Tims does try their best to make exactly what they need. They count how many are left over at the end of a shift every day and try to order based on that. If you do it right you have as little waste as possible at the end of the day. Unfortunately waste is just a part of selling food.
As for grocery stores: they put their “past fresh” shit out on the 50% off shelves and a lot of people buy it (I, for one, buy my bananas there because I hate green bananas) so I’m pretty sure the stuff that doesn’t get picked up off those shelves is actually inedible and possibly deadly.
Pavillion, I don’t go to Tim’s …but I’m with you when it comes to running out of chocolate, for example, there just aren’t enough chocolate breakfast choices as far as i’m concerned. I started eating oatmeal for breakfast & the girlfriend complains that a bowl of oatmeal cookies with chocolate chunks, just isn’t right…I agree & i think adding chocolate milk might be the answer…she doesn’t agree…not even sort of !
Where are the tags on this bitch? Haven’t we been through this a million or so times?
Sigh.
This wasn’t a bitch, as such. I literally came here for help from you guys, from people who know Halifax the best. Thanks for not taking it seriously, assholes.
Heathro – we just went through this (almost) exact conversation within the last few weeks.
Basically,if I remember correctly, it’s a few things:
Grocery stores can make money by selling stale or almost-bad produce at 50%, and since they make $, they’re not going to donate.
When a store sells or donates anything stale-dated and something happens to people who eat it, they’re screwed.
AND Food Banks don’t always take what you donate to them anyway…
Tim Horton’s, however, is a franchise, so some owners of the stores actually *do* donate, or at least they used to…
Gidget is bang on. It’s definitely a liability issue. If the food makes someone sick down the line, they’re at fault. That’s why food banks stick to non-perishables. Even the food bank throws stuff out oddly enough. That, and grocery stores are freakishly cheap.
hey Heathro, I have a green steak marked “best before Nov 6” still in the packaging, ya want it?
didn’t think so.
We’ve been over this not too long ago.
Left over food is a liability. I’m sure companies would rather NOT be socially responsible and NOT be sued than BE socially responsible and BE sued.
I don’t blame them either.
I worked at a grocery store (Superstore) for the past 5 years and during this time we donated tons of food to feed nova scotia – and people would come nearly everyday to pick it up. Get your facts straight – there are stores who do it.
I could be very wrong on this, but I believe FNS’s warehouse doesn’t have much (or any) refrigerated space in it like a grocery store/restaurant would.
FNS just started taking wild meat (a friend recently donated a deer he shot @ the start of the season), but apparently they’d stopped for awhile, ostensibly because of PDG’s idea above?
Could someone please let me know if this is correct?
I was of the understanding that large grocery stores use up a lot of still-good but not perfect produce, etc, in their take-out deli meals, salads and things like that.
Then, (or so I thought) anything that is past it’s best before date (like day-old baked goods or milk that is really close to “expiring”) gets marked down for quick sale.
A lot of other things, like dented cans or really stale food, are really not appropriate for selling or donating. They may be technically OK, and sometimes at home I will take a chance, but it is not worth the risk, or the embarrassment, for the store to try to fob that stuff on the truly needy.
There is such a thing as excess stuff that just cannot be used by anyone, and it is a sad side effect of the consumer culture we have.
That is the other side of this coin—the problem of utter crap being donated to food banks, Salvation Army, christmas gift drives, etc. — a big part of giving involves dignity, so some people should keep in mind that if it is not good enough for you it is not a “gift”for someone else.
I’ve worked at a foodbank in Calgary, and they do get a lot of food from grocery stores, some great, some good, some not that fabulous. A lot of volunteers get stuck with the job of weening thru the grocery store donations, and the majority of it gets used. Much of it only has 2 or three days left of shelflife if its fruit of veg’s, and the majority of donations are non-parishables which are dented/open boxes. Most folks that are using the foodbank are families and will probably go through the food very quickly. They also get A LOT of bread, much of which still has a week or more remaining, and can easily be frozen. Bakeries seem to have high standards of shelf-life goods.
So I guess I don’t know if NS foodbanks/grocery stores hold the same policies; the grocery stores get government funds for what they donate in AB. It gets weighed, and they get tax breaks for the amount given. It may even be more than what they would have made off that 50% off loaf of bread you bought last week, so it makes it worth their while to donate.
Haligonian225 you are right the Superstore does donate to Feed Nova Scotia. I dont know about Sobeys though but I have seen expired food on Sobeys shelves many times.
If I were in the food business I think I’d take my surplus and day-old doughnuts to a soup kitchen without anybody telling me, without any services taking notes, I’d just do it. They’re not going to say no at a soup kitchen with the hungry homeless waiting to be fed and I don’t need recognition to do something good for the community that makes my business possible.
you can also get bricks in vic park by donating to feed nova scotia as well.
good cause and they’ll be there quite a while….
Haligonian, that’s exactly what I’m taking about! I don’t have my facts straight – that’s why I came here! Straighten me out! Can you say what store you work at? I would love to call the manager and ask them outright if they do, and if there’s any way I could help. I truly didn’t know that Superstore donated food to FNS.
And PK, your attitude shows exactly how this wasteful cycle has been allowed to continue. Let them be socially irresponsible for fear of liability? There’s obviously something lacking here, like a public or company policy. I’m no lawyer, can anyone answer that? I feel for these stores because there are good people there who want to help but can’t, for fear of lawsuits. Could these big chain stores write up some sort of “contract” that protects them from these liabilities?
Why don’t car dealerships donate last years models to the homeless? They could park in the mall parking lot and then they wouldnt be homeless anymore.