To dumpster dive for food?

[Fatshionista]

DP went out tonight and got a bit drunk. He turned up (on time for those who read my other thread!) with a wheelie bin full of food. He said he was inspired by something I said earlier in the week and went to have a look. The bins for the Co-Op are in a side street and when he came in he brought in eight bags.

Some things were unusable such as mouldy bread, bad vegetables, yogurts past their expiry etc and anything with raw eggs but we have nine boxes of Mr Kipling cakes, six 6 pack cokes with minor dents, coffee, cake, Daz, meat, biscuits, crisps etc all individually packaged! There has to be at least £100 of stuff in my kitchen that I regularly buy and can freeze for next week.

I know it's illegal but, my God, the waste! AIBU to consider doing this more often? I'll put back what I don't need. We're not financially stable so saving £30 or £40 a week on shopping (a usual bill is £50-60) is a big win for us.

Its illegal for shops to pass on out of date food in case someone gets ill from it I believe.

Food that cannot be sold legally is deemed not fit for human consumption. It would be wrong to think it was good enough for certain members of society.Having said that I know that when I worked for a supermarket chain, we would sort the food and put the definitely not fit for consumption food in the skip, and the rest in a clean bin liner hung on the fence. Local homless people would then "steal it", which for our part was legal.

Good for your DH. I am glad to think the food is being used rather than ending up in a landfill.

Good on you both. I'd love to have to balls to do this! I watched a program about this not too long ago. I wouldn't know where to start though to be honest, and would probably go a bit too OTT and pitch up at my local Asda dressed in black complete with a balaclava, bin bag, and hand sanitizer Come to think of it, I have never actually seen the bins for any of our local supermarkets so have no idea how I'd actually get close enough for a rummage!

I hate food waste.

I was in Asda and picked up a bag of oranges, one had gone mouldy in the bag, but the others were ok - it was the same with most of the bags, they were on the turn. So I called the floor manager and commented taht they needed to open the bags, sling the mouldy ones away and sell the rest cheaply.

Absolute no go. They aren't allowed to open pre packaged food and sell individually. Criminal waste really.

YANBU. Ive done this is in my caravan dwelling youth. Some shops in my city used to pour bleach over the dumpster contents to deter it. Although I never came across that.

I say go for it.

I'm absolutely fine with eating that kind of food. Most of it isn't past it's use by date, just sell by date. There is so much pre-packaged food with just dents in the tins or boxes that are absolutely fine inside. I hate waste because I'm not lucky enough to be able to afford the amount I inevitably waste and my freezer is tiny so freezing meals happens only once or twice a week as we just don't have a lot of space.

I've always thought about it but never done it. DP was the brave one and plans on doing it again while being very careful.

Last night he found a solid pine cabinet by the side of the road so enlisted the help of his friend and brought it home. It's about £300 worth of cabinet and all it needs is handles. I mean, come on!!

I think they class it as 'theft' as it's often taken off their land so still 'their property' iykwim? I don't see how Tesco for example are 'losing out' as surely they're out of pocket either way? I tried to buy something reduced from co-op once but at the till she said she couldn't sell them to me as they had the day before's date on, that's always baffled me how can discount shops sell OOD products then? I got some easter chocolate last week for 20p, BBD was June 2011, I'm not dead yet?.........:o

Its called freeganism isnt it? I say go for it. When you think of the tonnes of landfill of perfectly good food wasted every day when there are people starving in the world or homeless on the streets I think its a terrible thing that corporations are allowed to throw it away when there is nothing wrong with it.

They only care about profits, but the government is always going on about households and the amount of food they throw away which would be insignificant compared to the food thrown away by big businesses.

Don't let the Coop know what your DH is doing.

Our local Coop used to sell lots of things off at the end of the day for 10p. Now they bin it. They reckon people used to hang about waiting for things to be marked down and head office said they should chuck it away or charge a proper price.

Bloody ridiculous and they're supposed to be an ethical company. Don't make me laugh, throwing food away isn't ethical.

It's rediculous the amount waste - I popped in to co-op yesterday and they wouldnt sell me lettuce as the display until date was the 10th of September, eventhough the use by date was the 11th. I voulnteered to go back to the fridge and get another with a longer shelf like, but they all had the same display until date.
I left the shop lettuce-less and you can guarantee where their lettuce was going. I wanted to use it that day too!
I should have just hung round the back of the shop waiting for the lettuce I so desperatley wanted to be chucked in the dumpster.

YANBU go for it but watch out for CCTV and be wary as if you were to get ill you would have no come back. My BF used to work in a supermarket and was at the amount of waste that went in the bins so she put a load of good stuff in big bags and we went back at night to collect it all... great for our poor budget but the fun bit was that lots were in there simply because the labels had come off the tins so tea became a fun lottery waiting to see what we had opened or trying to guess by shaking!

There is a Face Book page were you can comment on the Co-op's wasteful policies.

They were not allowed to give the food to the shelter incase they had hidden razor bldes in the bread or put poison in the dognuts - those were the actul examples given. Apparently some people wish the homeless harm!

Good for you.

I wouldn't tell the co-op though; they certainly wouldn't give you their blessing as it could be seen as encouraging you to eat food 'unfit for human consumption'. Look out for cctv too.

Happy foraging!

I won't be telling anyone and checking for CCTV :D
I'm surprised at all the support.

Whole Foods (used to be Fresh and Wild) have a scheme for passing on OOD food they have a rota of different charities who pick it up at closing time. I believe M&S have a similar scheme, and probably other shops do too. Even foods with high perishability (sushi springs to mind) is generally fine within 24 hours of the use-by date. There would quite often be several black sacks of food passed onto charity, including bruised fruit & veg, prepared snacks and meals, and loads of bread. If there was more of one particular thing than the charity could use they'd tell me to take it for my family's use we had a regular stream of OOD sushi at one point, until the store sorted out their stock control. We never got ill, stuff doesn't suddenly go bad on the stroke of midnight. Common sense and a good sense of smell are key.

At Whole Foods the staff are not supposed to hand out food to individual homeless people, presumably because it would risk creating an unseemly soup-kitchen scenario at the back door. But when I used to do a food pickup for the charity the F&W staff did encourage me to pick out sarnies to give to the individual homeless people as long as we did it just round the corner.

So clearly there's no legal impediment to it, and stores that don't do it should be lobbied hard to come up with a more ethical policy.

I'm surprised that the Co-Op who proclaim to be ethical throw away so much perfectly good food when M&S etc don't! It just boggles the mind.

I couldn't find the link to the Facebook page. Does anyone have it?

I may have to send DH out tonight to go dumpster diving! Genius idea!

I would do it myself but I don't drive ad am too chicken

We don't have a car right now either. We took someone's empty wheelie bin (put it back empty too - we're not animals ) and made two trips :o.

there's a charity called fair share who my sister works for. they collect overstock and short date food and sort it for homeless hostels etc. M&S and waitrose often give to them, tesco refuse to (presumably because they are more interested in profit than doing the right thing) apparently tesco and asda contribute more to landfill from potentially useable food waste than any other supermarkets

I don't understand the mentality of supermarkets. I mean, it's waste and they're no longer going to make a profit from it, right?

oooooh i really want to do this!!!!

we spent most of the weekend foraging in the "wild" and have loads of apples, a few blackberries, walnuts (plus much more to come), sweet chestnuts to roast (again tons more on the trees)... am also keeping an eye on the pear tree in town for when they're riper.

i could cut down my shopping bill by a huge amount if i got stuff out of bins too... hmmmmm

I know someone who has done this at Waitrose, she had a really good find once, when she found a lot of their catering food (which they do not sell in store) had been binned.

I really, really wish I had the nerve to do it!

i am going to see if DP is up for it tonight... he will probably say no