To get cross with all the food supermarkets waste when there are people going hungry?

[LittleMissGerardButlersMinion]

I get so annoyed that supermarkets throw out all the food at the end of the day that goes out of date, even best before.

I know they have to be careful about food poisoning etc, but things with a best before date ie bread etc, can still be eaten.

It seems such a waste, especially when there are people going hungry :(

Even if they gave it to shelters and got them to sign a disclaimer or something? (I know it's more technical than that but you get the idea).

YANBU. My local sainsbury throws away all their cakes and biscuits and sells the bread to pig farmers. I asked could I have the cakes and biscuits for a local homeless charity and they said no. Arses.

Waitrose however are very generous and even give us their flowers!

We have to, it's the law. We can get fined huge amounts for selling food that's even a day out of date. I agree that it's appalling but it's the law you need to change here.

I work for ASDA and everyday we reduce all the stock on that days date. Go instore after 6pm and we're selling things down from £3 to 20p. It costs us to waste food, so we're better off selling it at stupid costs than we are wasting it, BUT if it's not sold by midnight, we don't have a choice. We can't knowingly sell food that's out of date.

I do think all supermarkets should be required to donate out-of-date food, though. But again, it's the law that needs changing before anything can/will be done about it.

I'd be more impressed if supermarkets changed their employment practices and stopped using free labour from the Government's work programme and started creating good jobs so people didn't have to rely on food banks in the first place.

That obviously goes for other employers too.

I used to think supermarkets should give away out of date food then I started working for a supermarket. They did a big donation drive for a food bank, customers donated food in store then the supermarket topped it up by a substantial amount. Some of the responses on their Facebook page were vitriolic. How dare the company ask customers to donate, they should donate themselves (they did top up donations but apparently not by enough) they could afford to give more, people are only struggling because of their high prices, why don't they lower their prices or just give stuff away etc. Those were reactions to a supermarket donating in date food! If they gave away out of date food there would be people saying they are just trying to save on disposal costs by giving rubbish to the poor, they don't really care about poor people, how dare they donate out of date food when they could afford to give away in date food etc. They can't win. And in our sue happy culture someone would get sick and see the chance to get money from a large company or give them negative publicity. I hate food waste but to make donating out of date food possible, our laws and cultural attitudes around out of date food need to change, you can't just blame the supermarkets.

Sainsburys actually donate a huge amount of their food-everything they legally can. They have recently acheived zero waste to landfill, so no food is just chucked away. Each store has a nominated local charity who they donate food to at the end of the day. Our local supports an animal shelter and gives them left over fruit, bread etc every evening. The flowers go to a retirement home. Obviously there are some foods that they cannot safely donate and these have to be disposed of-food poisoning can be life threatening. If you ask at your local store they will be able to tell you who they donate to.
www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/business/sainsbury2019s-achieves-zero-waste-to-landfill