The Reduce Supermarket Wastage Campaign!

fruitcake_2

I am a total end of the day supermarket bargain hunter. From my limited experience, each individual supermarket tends to make up it's own rules....or at least the workers do according to how they feel about produce or the company. There are three M and S stores near me, one being a small local store. The Duty manager at the local explained that the food was offered to staff at a reduced rate at the end of the day when he was on shift but his colleague didn't and there was alot of wastage at the end of the day, and at the large store, I questioned the wastage three years ago when I saw the amount of stock they were putting in trolleys to throw away....my heart just sank. They stuck to their policy. I have noticed on the last two months the yellow reduction stickers (£1, £3 and 50p) that are being placed on some of the goods near the end of the day now.....so maybe, just maybe they will continue to reduce the goods even further.
Tesco "reducers" tend to knock 80% off the price of goods with the same sellby or useby date, and if you're lucky even 90%.
I consciously go around the store and try and spot same day dates on certain foods(yes I know how sad that sounds...) and admit I have very sharp eyes as I am constantly spotting stock they have not rotated and plenty that are out of date.
I like my fruit and veg and sometimes, they will reduce items that are a day out of date and sell it to you (although I understand they are putting their jobs on the line as they could be sued for this), I don't mind as I am not going to complain when a bag of perfectly good apples could go to waste!

jamespir

i ahve been reading about freegens who basically remove the stuff from the supermarket bins and use it as food is this illegal to this if i were to go round to my local tesco and remove the perfectley good stuff they chuck away as the box is battered

boyse7en

Yes, it is illegal to remove items from skips/bins, i think it would be classed as theft.

Items in a bin are the property of the bin owner (i.e. Tesco)

I think you'd be unlucky to get done for it, more likely have threats and trouble from the vagrants and beggars who are also after it.

Horace

I can remember a time, over 30 years' ago now:eek: when my aunt ran a childrens home, a lot of the food that she served up to the kids was donated by M&S - it was all their close to sell by date. She froze a lot of it and not one of us had food poisoning.

I hate the fact that supermarkets sell a lot of packaged goods which I guess is why I try not to use them very often because I like to handle my fruit and pick what I want rather than what they think I should have.

To be controversial I think that the food that gets chucked out should be given to the prisons - let them eat old stuff that is almost crawling away - it works at that prison in Arizona where they have to wear pink boxer shorts and pink handcufgs. Why should a prisoner get a 5 star meal and a pensioner has to scrimp and scrape?:mad:

hopeful17_2

maybe if food was knocked down to start with rather than making millions we wouldnt have as much wastage or if it was a bank hol every other week because the supermarkets are always short of food then., saying that i will join in with you all

zebulon

jamespir wrote: »

i ahve been reading about freegens who basically remove the stuff from the supermarket bins and use it as food is this illegal to this if i were to go round to my local tesco and remove the perfectley good stuff they chuck away as the box is battered

in france anyway, everything that's chucked away in supermarkets is open, smashed etc, plus poured with somethinkg like bleach all over .... you wouldn't want to steal it from the bins.

anyway that was a while ago, might have change now.

as a note, I find UK actually much more in advance than France, in supermarkets, with reducing products. Although it might start earlier - the discount is smaller but is there several days before the sellby date, and not at 6pm on the day!

anyway I love getting my salmon at 80p

saintscouple

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lindos90

My mum used to work in a small bakery, and she could not understand why he threw all his leftover bread away, the owner said he NEVER reduced the price of the bread at the end of the day, because if he did, customers would only visit his shop just before closing time and he would not sell any at full price!!!!

In the end she pestered him about it and he partly relented, and sold the bread to a local farmer who fed it to his pigs (I assume after being dipped in some pig swill!!)

My mum was 40 years before her time when it came to recycling!

I do hate waste though, even if its just offered to staff at the end of the day, its better than it being wasted.

Helenka_3

I have questioned two or three supermarkets in my area.

What food isn't sold off goes in the bin and of course "bin diving" is illegal.

Staff said they wanted it to go to charities for the homeless, but they have been told that they are not allowed to do this. :mad:

Apparently they are worried that if someone eats something out of date and are ill they could get sued.

I think it is unlikelt that they would give free food to shoppers at the end of the night.
However, perhaps if we got a campaign going then some charities would benefit from this.

I would be willing to help on such a campaign. What do people think?

taxiphil

The great irony in all of this is that when supermarkets accidentally leave out of date food on the shelves, and somebody complains about it, the first thing the supermarket will say is "oh, it wouldn't have caused any harm anyway, it would have been perfectly safe to eat".