When businesses sell food, it is a common practice to throw away items past their "sell by" date. While this makes sense on the surface, there are many things that businesses could be doing to be less wasteful but are not.
Sometimes, the problem goes even further, with perfectly good items being thrown away, as in this recent case posted by a dumpster diver on Reddit.
What's happening?
The original poster shared their experience on the r/DumpsterDiving subreddit, alongside a photo. "There is no end to the supply of wasted food. As long as they toss it, we will collect it," they said.
Their photo shows some items that may have been thrown out for being expired, such as bottled lemonade and packaged bacon and hot dogs.
However, a huge portion of their haul was fresh produce. Several squash, a bag of apples, another bag of clementine oranges, multiple heads of broccoli, and a bag of green beans. They visually appear to be fresh and perfectly edible, without any bruises, wrinkles, or deterioration. At worst, some of the broccoli might need trimming before cooking.
According to the original poster's later comments, their haul was easy pickings. "These items were in banana boxes laying in the dumpster," they said.
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Why is grocery store waste concerning?
When stores throw out food like this, they're not just wasting their own money. They factor this expense into the cost of doing business, and it is reflected in the prices they charge for their items, meaning every shopper subsidizes this practice.
Meanwhile, all of the resources that went into producing this food are also being wasted. The labor, water, energy, land, fertilizer, and everything else used to grow and process the food have to be replaced — even the plastic used to wrap the products. The extra strain on our environment and our food production system is not good for the planet or the economy.
Can companies do anything about this?
A responsible store can stop this kind of waste before it starts by reducing the amount of product that it buys and stocking its shelves with only what it can sell. When a store ends up with excess, it can lower prices as the expiration date approaches, or even donate items that are not selling well.
If products do expire — which does happen even with the best practices, due to power outages and similar accidents — the spoiled food can be composted or turned into biofuel. It should never just be thrown away.
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Heck yes 👍 What can I do about waste at the grocery store?
Whenever possible, growing your own food at home allows you to ensure that it is produced without any waste or environmentally damaging products such as plastic.
When that isn't possible, you can save money and reduce the amount of food going to landfills by using an app like Too Good To Go, which allows businesses to discount a product as it approaches its expiration date.
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