Community larder - would you use one

Oh yes the turkeys after Christmas is always a funny one. But most of time it’s seasonal or loads of beer gone off fruits / veg and bread oh so much bread. Baguettes and batons bane of my life. Only so many garlic pizza sticks even the children want.

and as you say seasonal so once hallowed has been the spooky foods come though even though it’s still the same item just shaped like a ghost.

This, and inevitably sometimes the perishable stock ordered won't match what people have happened to come through the door wanting that day. Supermarkets do a lot of work to try and minimise how often this happens, but there are always going to be some curveballs. And fuck ups too. It's not 100% predictable.

Even giving perishable things away for free doesn't mean enough people will inevitably take them before shops have to get rid. Especially as people tend now to have some idea that disposing of things is a potential cost to them. Most of us get less in the way of free waste collection than we did 20, 30, 40 years ago.

None of which is to say that supermarkets don't benefit from the PR, of course.

Shops get to a point where they need to close for the day so they can't keep attempting to sell everything. Even if they reduced it to nothing to give away for free they can't stay open incase people turn up.
Also big supermarkets tend to be on the edges of towns that most people have to drive to but community fridges are often in places like a community centre which are walking distances from peoples homes.

I used to, and paid forward. But now I have an allotment, I take surplus there.

The food that my organisation gets is from two supermarkets. One half a mile away, one two miles away. So the fossil fuel thing is meaningless. Me driving to the pantry for my volunteer shift probably uses more petrol.

The stupidest one was a professional team building company who had run a session with a huge finance company, with staff making and packaging up cooking kits for the less fortunate. Brilliant, but they hadn't found any less fortunate to actually give it to, and hadn't really thought about food hygiene when chopping up and bagging veg etc. Finance Co had paid Team Building Co north of £3k for their lovely time helping the less fortunate. Most of the fresh stuff had to be binned, though the packs of noodles, coconut milk etc were fine to use.

Virtually everything our community organisation gives away, is perishable fruit and veg. It's all very well saying that supermarkets should plan better, but customer demand is unpredictable, and largely depends on the weather. Supermarkets and farmers can't react to a heatwave or a week of cold and rainy weather in July, overnight.

As for supermarkets getting something out of giving away surplus, that can only be good, as it means they won't throw it into landfill. I don't think there's a need to be cynical about it.

I can't tell you how many times I've had a call late at night from a retailer or distributor - would we like 300 Asian ready meals, now, tonight? How about a pallet of dipping sauces from a major fast food place, because they are "limited edition" and the campaign has now ended? Or beautiful legs of lamb and veg that a food stylist (yes, really) has prepared and shot for a new advert, which is now done? Planning / logistics is a huge part of the issue on both sides ime.

There is absolutely an element (a large one) of greenwashing to it, I agree.

If you put me in charge of Big Supermarket tomorrow and asked me to develop a genuinely enviro friendly strategy, it would be "Less". Less choice, less chasing trends, fewer product lines. But supermarkets are chasing market share and spending huge amounts on being ready with sausages and lettuce when sunshine is promised; with soups and casserole veg when the weather turns, with Easter stuff Feb-April and so on, and never running out. The contra of that is waste - you can't be everything to all customers up until 11pm on the night of x event or season, and then snap your fingers and have that stuff all magicked away - especially if it's perishable.

Farmers pay a price too, given that the supermarkets negotiate them into the ground with their huge purchasing power.

Price - presumably the discounted cost of, say, soup in August would be so low that supermarkets make the decision to write it off and polish their halos.

BTW - we (and many similar) don't collect only from supermarkets. A lot of it is food markets, farms, food industry, hospitality. Because most of these products have long supply chains and there is waste at every stage.

Interesting but I am still not convinced of the projects that focus solely on reducing the food waste as an environmental benefit. How does driving 1.5 tonnes of food, as multiple trips, to a different location, using fossil fuel, help the environment exactly?

When the food is set at the right price in store, it will sell. Basic economics. Is this not just an PR exercise, allowing the retailers to look like they are doing good, whilst extracting as much profit as possible?

I was talking to a volunteer at a foodbank / community larder. He invited me to visit and take a bag with me. When I said that I would much rather someone in need had the food he told me that one of the volunteers regularly ends up taking boxes of leftovers to feed her pigs.

I used to be involved with a community larder, we were well used sadly had to close because of premises issues, I see some of people who came and they miss it, we were. A cross between food banks and a food waste project we had a mix of people but mainly people just trying to feed themselves through the week.

Pretty much I’ve noticed the big Tescos near me say how many tonnes of food they have shared with social partners over the year etc

I do think it’s a good thing to reduce food waste but in general this is stuff that’s being given away at 9pm with a use by of that day or veg/ milk/bread with a best before date of that day.

Obviously some stuff can be frozen but the idea behind my local one which is just a wooden shelter with a fridge freezer and a table food goes out and they’d like it gone asap as can’t give away stuff after the use by date.

A food bank or a food waste project?

It's unlikely that they use a food bank, as virtually all of them require referrals (I'm a referrer for the Trussel Trust one, and am also called in to make referrals to other food banks). It's rare to find a food bank where anyone can just turn up.

I'd also be surprised if they wanted food from a food bank, as it's incredibly basic stuff.

Thank you. So the answer is that it gives the supermarket a tax break and a story to share around their corporate social responsibility?

Yes. I take fruit & veg that's started to go off for composting & feeding wildlife.

(And we throw next to nothing away - we send past-it veg to local allotments for composting, they swap us for herbs etc.)

It depends really. As I wrote above I run one of these, I’d say on the larger side (up to 700 people a week and 1.5 tonnes of food). And I am involved in various research and other initiatives linked to community larders.

A lot of what we get is seasonal, or contra-seasonal - ie we get pumpkins after Halloween, Christmas chocs in January. On 24 December we have routinely gotten some very posh turkeys - I remember one of my volunteers turning over one and finding a price tag of £140 - and sides of salmon, because they all had dates of 26 December. The other side of that is enormous gluts of courgettes etc in their season, which we are invited to glean.

The other common thing is weather related - around the April bank holidays we will get a glut of either sausages or soup, depending on which way the weather has gone, I assume because supermarket head office buyers are hedging their bets on what consumers want.

I find it endlessly fascinating.

Did you actually READ the OP?

They get to mark it off as charitable
giving also the costs of the bins to dispose of food are costly.

Most of what gets thrown rather than sold once reduced are the cheaper things very very rarely are you going to find lamb chops and salmon.

i used to, on a sunday when i met my dm in a certain place, but generally i would have to go out of my way to go there, more than 2 miles, so i am not sure it is worth it

Couldn't you use it and then make a donation to the organisation that runs it?

We didn't have a larder but there is a community shop. They stock up on Mondays and towards the end of the week they reduce prices or give food away.

This week it was chicken, potatoes, cabbage, onions and carrots for £7.

They have food that you can take but they are not allowed to sell, things like those little cereal boxes you get in a variety pack.

There was one near us situated in a room in a church and open a few days a week when the room was also a collection point for food bank parcels; so I assumed it was not for "everyone" although anyone could donate to ot.

Brother and sil use one

They also have two expensive cars, a four bed detached house and of course, a cockapoo.

They use a food bank. Do they need to? No. But they do

We have one I sometines stop and have a look, grab something. Its pretty much whatever reduced stuff doesn’t sell in local Co op / bakery of stuff going off that day just generally a few bits/ bread / flowers occasionally the community run field has a glut and there will be 50 marrows or huge pile of courgettes. There’s a community orchard so crates and crates of apples in autumn.

Whilst you can’t buy stuff the local growing project / orchard has fundraiser days so you can bake or donate generously and help out that way. Individuals can also donate but I tend to put things like loo roll or tins that last a bit longer.