Supermarkets their sell by dates on foodstuffs, the waste and the people and animals

Pootle

Pootle

Well-Known Member
In the UK the large brand supermarkets all have sell by dates on all their food products, both fresh and preserved foods. Naturally this is a practice in place to prevent the public buying food that is not suitable for human consumption as agreed by the company. Therefore when a product is near to its sell by date, the supermarket reduce the cost of it to try to get something for it rather than make no money on it. Once the sell by date has passed, ie 26th July 2012, then that product can no longer be sold as all products now possess barcodes and it is waste food. All the foods with expiry dates passed this date are then put in large plastic waste bins and are classed as rubbish, unsuitable for human consumption. A suitable system that stops us eating mouldy food it would seem.
The problem is that it doesn’t work so efficiently and many times, especially with fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts (fresh nuts stay edible for ages!), they are wastefully sent to the bins. Last night what triggered this off, I was in my local shop quite late which is a miniature version of one of the big supermarkets and at the front of the shop near to the tills was a table loaded with bananas (about 7 to 8 in each bag), they where reduced, but not drastically reduced, but the ridiculous thing was that they where still partially green and for most peoples taste, I would suggest that they where under ripe. The staff are not allowed them free of charge, they must get binned!. I estimate at least 50 under ripe bananas are sat in a bin now. This is just one insignificant example of food that is being wasted as past its sell by date when it could be put to far better use.
Obviously what I am getting at is that the companies who practice this sell by date schemes should really start to think about ideas. Ie Could they donate some of these products to local animal centres, animal sanctuaries, even zoos. The small sanctuaries are often dependent on public kindness in the form of donations of not only cash but foodstuffs too. Surely there must be a logical way of working something out that must be simple and cost virtually nothing, for these supermarket companies to invite rescue centres, sanctuaries and zoos to ‘come an take what you want’ before we dispose of it for good.
I am going to pen a letter to this company and see what happens, anyone have any further suggestions or ideas that may help out?

PS - My title reads odd because it was too long for the space available!!
 
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at least in some places zoos do receive a lot of food that can no longer be sold but which is still perfectly fit for consumption. There may of course be laws against this in certain countries, but on the whole I think it would depend on the zoos approaching the supermarkets with the idea (the supermarket companies can even use it to their own advantage in terms of public relations and advertising, sort of showing how they are supporting local zoos/charities).

A lot of food is wasted in developed countries due to the issues you discuss above. There is a thing called dumpster-diving in NZ (and I assume elsewhere), where people --er, usually students -- live on free food obtained from rubbish skips outside supermarkets.
 
In Berlin we have a large group of voluntaries who collect expired food and distribute it to needy people. I believe it is well organized, some cars go around and collect and afterwards it is sorted out at a central place.
It should be fairly easy to do the same for animals in bigger towns where animal centers could form a sort of network for this purpose, in smaller towns a sanctuary could probably also find an agreement with the local supermarket.
 
Chlidonias said:
There is a thing called dumpster-diving in NZ (and I assume elsewhere), where people --er, usually students -- live on free food obtained from rubbish skips outside supermarkets.
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It happens here in the UK too, students and 'wanna be' hippies.

Also, in the UK some of larger brand supermarkets at the moment don't have a good reputation for various reasons and if they could make the move to donate to needy animals sanctuaries etc,l it would be a good PR exercise I am sure as well as being beneficial to all parties.
 
I work in a supermarket, and very rarely is non-fresh food (i.e. not produce, bakery goods, chilled foods or meat products) binned because it expires. Usually good management of purchases by buyers prevents this happening, and price reductions can be used on excess stock close to expiration very effectively.

In the fresh-food departments, most food that is unsold after expiry is collected in bins, and sold to local pig farmers. A small proportion is binned, typically packaged products that no-one bothers opening and tipping into the bins.
 
In Australia, and probably New Zealand too as they have the same Food Standards Code, there are essentially three types of expiry labeling on foods:

  • Use By - which is food that must be sold and consumed by that date (unless frozen by the consumer), because after that date the product will go off and cause illness. Supermarkets reduce the price of these foods as the expiry date nears to sell them, otherwise they are disposed of (dumped). Typical products with this type of label include refrigerated meats and milk.
  • Baked On - this is for breads and cakes etc. It tells you the day the goods were made, and - from memory - they have until noon the following day to sell, after that they are dumped.
  • Best Before - this is found on most foodstuffs, and usually has a a date two years after the date of manufacture. Essentially this means that after that date the manufacturers will not guarantee the quality of the product (i.e taste, texture, colour , consistency). However, the food is usually still safe to eat. Many people refuse to buy food after it's best before because they think it's not safe, so supermarkets try to get rid of it prior to that date. But some things - like chips - taste just fine well after their best before. In fact, some small business make a living buying remaindered foods from the big companys and then selling them at local weekly markets etc.

Incidentally, honey doesn't require an expiry date as it doesn't go off. I recall seeing some labelled as having a Best Before date of December 31, 2030.


:p

Hix
 
Hix said:
Incidentally, honey doesn't require an expiry date as it doesn't go off. I recall seeing some labelled as having a Best Before date of December 31, 2030.
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I am sure you are right about this, as I recall reading that honey was discovered in Egyptian tombs in the pyramids and apparently it was still perfectly edible albeit a bit crusty on top.
 
I work for one of the "big four" in the UK and I know a few of our stores donate to local zoos et al, prime example is the Merry Hill branch giving food to Dudley Zoo, mainly fruit and veg.
After the Queens jubilee and the dismal weather we found ourselves with a lot of salads, fruit and bakery items left over so decided to phone around and see what we could give away. A homeless charity took a lot of cakes whilst Dudley Zoo took a few stacks of bananas and assorted other fruit. Out of the animal places we tried WMSP and Twycross didn't want any, Birmingham Nature Centre were impossible to connect to and the only other place to take anything was Woodgate Valley Country Park who had about 20 lettuces for their rabbits and guinea pigs... Basically my point is this, not many places want it and those that do tend to have a regular supply and a relationship with specific stores/companies.
Sorry for the rambling post but I wanted to address it from an "insiders" :p point of view!
 
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I'm surprised a few places didn't want any - from my experiences most zoos jump at the chance to take perfectly good food (as long as it's not gone off, overripe, squashed etc). Durrell mentions in one of his books about fruit being donated to the zoo (I think it was peaches with some spots and nobody wanted to buy them).

:p

Hix
 
In these days of fancy diets (or is that just sports people) you could imagine that a sudden glut of something occasionally might be nearly more trouble than it's worth whereas regular donations that you can rely on is the bread & butter to some cash strapped places.
 
zooboy28 said:
I work in a supermarket, and very rarely is non-fresh food (i.e. not produce, bakery goods, chilled foods or meat products) binned because it expires. Usually good management of purchases by buyers prevents this happening, and price reductions can be used on excess stock close to expiration very effectively.

In the fresh-food departments, most food that is unsold after expiry is collected in bins, and sold to local pig farmers. A small proportion is binned, typically packaged products that no-one bothers opening and tipping into the bins.
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I thought it was now illegal for Pig farmers to do this now. I'm sure it was stopped after the Foot and Mouth crisis.
 
At the deyoung family zoo in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan they try to use as much of the available extra food to their advantage. If the grocery store gets to big a shipment of dry animal foods they call the zoo and also give them produce. Also, they have a list of vegetables and fruit on there website that they will take if you bring them in. It is now a common occurrence to see people walking into the zoo with a bag of vegetables grown in their home garden. Also being in the middle of dairy of dairy country they have an interesting deal set up with farms. What happens is if a cow a cow dies of natural causes(old age, broken leg, etc) and haven't received any form of antibiotics or had infections in the past 6 weeks they will give them to the zoo for a small amount of money or free. The reason they do this is because they aren't able to sell them for human consumption even though they are perfectly fine.
 
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