To wonder just how much perfectly good food tesco sell as "waste"

[LEMisdisappointed]

Was shopping in tesco today - I always check out the reductions, especially if i happen to be there at the end of the day. So, the guy has a big pile of those fresh fruit salad mixes you can get from the fresh fruit department. I thought I would grab a few for DD - but no, i couldnt have them. Why? They had run out of reduced stickers - I asked what they would do with them - throw them away as waste The guy then instructed the other guy to throw anything that would be reduced out as waste due to the lack of stickers!!

Was pissed off, the guy made me feel like a pain in the arse scrounger. Err, no, i like a bargain and i dont like the thought of perfectly good food going to waste.

WTAF???

I agree with usual. The whole sell by date system needs to be looked at, it's ludicrous.

I never follow sell by dates. If looks and smells okay? Eat.

We haven't died yet.

I work for the Co op, untill recently we did the bakery reductions at about 5 oclock and was able to reduce them to silly money and they all got sold as people knew when to come in to get a bargain,

The new rules in my shop is not to do bakery and further reductions untill about 7 oclock and then only allowed to reduce bakery by 50%, we have so much more waste now than we did before,

I feel that we are losing more money by this rule as so much more is being thrown away, It's disgusting really, A lot of the waste of refrigerated or frozen food is where the customers pick something up out of the fridges or freezers then dump it somewhere unfridgerated, it has to be wasted as it is hard to tell how long it has been out of the fridge or freezer for,

If packaging has just been ripped or one taken out of a pack of six for example of unfridgerated food then it is selotaped and reduced accordingly but I have had a few customers who always seem to want something reduced because the packaging is ripped, It does make you wonder as it always seems to be the same few.

Myself and my DH work in a huge supermarket and the amount of perfectly good food that is thrown away is obsene. The whole salad bar is thrown away, as is the olive bar. I regularly see 4 sided cages full of bakery items by the conpactor. It really is immoral.

compactor

I used to work in Tesco as a student and in the end I had to ask the management for guidance re. reductions as I used to be faced with the equivalent of a braying mob who would surround me as I tried to work and then verbally harangue me if the reductions weren't sufficient for them. To that end I'm all for a system in place rather than leaving vulnerable members of staff to face incredible levels of aggression. I would've much preferred to dump the food rather than face that amount of intimidation.

There are things we could do too though. If you are happy to eat something reduced that is short dated then you should be happy to buy it at "only pennies off" instead of wanting it dirt cheap. It irritates me to see people scrabbling about on shelves for the longest date they can get even if they intend to eat it they day or the next. And leaving chilled and frozen stuff out as a previous poster said is customers wasting food not Tesco. If food is out of date it's legally not fit for consumption, by rich, poor or homeless! No doubt most people would complain if they got food poisoning which contributes to the ridiculous short life of food to keep the retailers on the safe side.

Could it be given to farmers as animal feed.

Tooearlyintheday - Throwing out food isn't a solution to that issue. Staff could reduce items in the store room instead of the shop floor to avoid the aggressive customers.

Its only illegal to sell food past its sell by date, no restrictions on giving that food away. But no, there's no money in that so why would they?

same size I really don't think the supermarkets can give away out of code food, they'd be opening themselves up to a whole load of legal issues re. People suing for food poisoning. My store would give away bread and bakery items which were best before dated to local charities but use by dates are an absolute, they have to dump the product.

There are several charities which take surplus food from major supermarkets like Tesco and then redistribute it to those in need.

fareshare is one. The guy on the shop floor may noth ave known, but there is every chance that the food you saw would have actually gone to one somewhere like this.

I believe a lot of fresh, but out of date food (fruit and veg etc) does actually go to farmers.

I just wish they would do proper reductions rather than piddly few pence off. If they reduced by 50% they would shift masses of their short date items but that might stop people buying so much full price stuff

Could it be given to farmers as animal feed.

You can't give all those lovely fresh cream cakes to the pigs!

They should be reduced and kept for me

If you are happy to eat something reduced that is short dated then you should be happy to buy it at "only pennies off" instead of wanting it dirt cheap.

Not really. If a £10 joint of meat is reduced to £9 it's still too expensive for me and I won't / can't buy it. If it's reduced to £4 I'll buy it and chuck it in the freezer.

Squeaver, not a single product from my store goes to farmers. Its simply thrown away.
I even emailed head office about how much perfectly useable food gets binned. I just got fobbed off. Myself and OH think that as it doesnt have to be 'offically wasted'- so it shows up on the annual waste bill the manager doesnt care.

Based on the whole chicken I bought the other day tesco also sell waste as food.

Supermarkets cannot pass food on to homeless shelters etc due to elf & safety :( trust me we don't like stuff going to waste as it impacts on the store and affects end of year bonus :( we reduce stuff all day most nights in stuck finishing it all off and if its nearly home time we silly price it 10p etc

I'm not in!! I'm stuck doing the markdowns

Tooearly I hear you about aggressive customers, I have seen this for myself and thought OMFG!! Also you will get the ones who just put it all indescriminately into their trolley, the whole lot, then discard the bits they don't want around the store!

To be absolutely fair to my local tesco, they actually do do really good reductions if you happen to be there at the right time. I was just incredulous that they had run out of stickers and therefore would be dumping food that wasn't out of date until tomorrow or tuesday! I did speak to the manager, he was squirming and admitted this wasn't the first time this had happened

Having spent 6 months in Birmingham Children's hospital staying at Ronald Macdonald house (accomodation for parents.) The days when you fell back to your room and the local supermarket had left a pile of food in the foyer was a godsend. It can be done for charity so not convinced fully by the H&S arguments given by some stores.

'If food is out of date it's legally not fit for consumption, by rich, poor or homeless!'

No this isn't true at all. Stores are not allowed to sell it. But it is not unsafe.

I work in the food industry and we change the best before dates around all the time. They don't mean the food goes bad the day after this date. It's a guideline based on many factors, shelf-life testing being only one.

The system is ridiculous, because of the way it's communicated to shoppers, and because of the legal issues around selling it after the date has passed.

Food can go stale or bad way before the BBD or keep for a lot longer depending on the conditions it's stored in.

Using common sense is a much better way of gauging how fresh food is.

I've been chased down to the tills by someone wanting the markdowns I had in a basket we have a few that come in most days and ones that 'find' stuff on the shelves and give to us to markdown seen people fight over an item and at Xmas time I was pushed poked etc while doing the markdowns I have also walked away and refused to do them when a guy had a whole trolley full and when he saw I was marking down lower he tried putting all his stuff back so I would do it lower

In the old days you got better reductions. These days its pennies.

Let me tell you about a wonderful charity in New Zealand called Kaibosh. They realised that there was a gap: supermarkets and bakeries didn't want to waste still-good food, but didn't want to pay the expense of getting rid of it and didn't want to be the ones distributing it. Charities couldn't afford to go and pick it up, and had not been successful approaching supermarkets directly for donations. Enter Kaibosh, the food rescue charity. They rescue the still-good food from retailers and redistribute it to charities who work with people in need. This is good for the community, good for the environment and good for businesses who work with sustainability and social justice values in mind.
It is a model that could easily be implemented in the UK. So, which one of you will get it set up!?
Kaibosh, the food rescue charity