The amount of perfectly good food that gets chucked away

pawsies

I've been told by senior staff to chuck things out that are perfectly fine such as melted toblerone (would be fine if put in fridge, not sellable but still edible). Other food items that have BBE on them are also chucked out rather than being offered at discount/offered to staff/donated to homeless people.

Instead it gets written off and on it's way to landfill. I think it's disgusting but unsure about challenging policies as I've only been employed by them for 2 months.

Is anyone in a similar position? Previously when I volunteered for a charity shop I usually took home things that were otherwise going to go to landfill lol! Still use them to this day though.

arcon5

In my experience you offer certain members of staff some slack and they take more. Where my partner works they used to allow staff to take home damaged stock free, but it soon stopped when the bad apples was hiding certain items or damaging certain items so could get them free at the end of the shift - now they offer nothing.

pawsies

arcon5 wrote: »

In my experience you offer certain members of staff some slack and they take more. Where my partner works they used to allow staff to take home damaged stock free, but it soon stopped when the bad apples was hiding certain items or damaging certain items so could get them free at the end of the shift - now they offer nothing.

I can see that side of the coin, but surely cctv would catch them out?

Seems a shame to cancel it based on a few unruly staff. There should be rules put in place.

rtho782

By selling an item cheap/below cost, or giving away items, they are potentially also losing money as they would otherwise have sold a full price item.

It's their stock to waste!

pawsies

rtho782 wrote: »

By selling an item cheap/below cost, or giving away items, they are potentially also losing money as they would otherwise have sold a full price item.

It's their stock to waste!

Not if the stock is written off already and item is only going into the bin otherwise. They're still losing the same amount of money but why add to landfill if they don't need to?

I could understand the issue with use by products but not bbe.

As I said before donating the food would be fine provided they got the recipient to sign a disclaimer to prevent them being sued.

Steer73

M&S used to give their out-of-date food to charities. Don't know if they still do. The quality of their stuff was such that it was still fine for days after the sell by date.

Judith_W

My OH works for a charity and they have cut down on what food they are allowed to accept. Anything that needs to be refridgerated etc cannot be accepted as they cannot guarantee that the food has been stored correctly and the charity would be in trouble if the recipients got ill after eating.

System

Does the food not just get thrown in the bins round the back of the store anyway? Is that not what the homeless do (rummage around the bins for food).

Are you sure it makes its way to the landfill?

arcon5

pawsies wrote: »

I can see that side of the coin, but surely cctv would catch them out?

CCTV would catch them, not necessarily prevent them - especially in the knowledge the managers are unlikely to scrawl through hours of CCTV see how a product came to being damaged.

Seems a shame to cancel it based on a few unruly staff. There should be rules put in place.

Totally agree. Unfortunately many employers choose the easier route of not allowing it at all rather than monitoring potential abuse.

When I worked at Starbucks you could have partner beverages during shift and shortly after/before for free - unfortunately despite it being a generous allowance, staff occasionally gave friends or family a free drink and put it through as a 'partner beverage'.

After a while staff start seeing perks as an entitlement and abuse it. Seen it in every job i've ever worked in and had employees do it to me.

Steer73 wrote: »

M&S used to give their out-of-date food to charities. Don't know if they still do. The quality of their stuff was such that it was still fine for days after the sell by date.

Many moons ago when I worked at starbucks we suggested giving food to the homeless at the end of the day, or at the very least allow a charity to collect it - the manager enlightened us with the reason why, apparently in the US somebody got food poisoning or something and they was successfully sued. Not sure how true it is but it certainly sounds credible. The same scenario also applies to 'hot drinks', hence the 'caution, contents may be hot' disclaimer now on cups/

Charliezoo

I'm disgusted by my local Tesco Metro which has a small bakery. They NEVER reduce the bakery products at the end of the day but guess what? I pop in at 9pm and staff are shovelling the whole lot into black bin liners. Perfectly good rolls, pastries etc straight in the bin. If they bagged them up and sold them for a quid for 6 or something they'd probably have no problems selling them in the evening.

I really hate wasted food.

I_wanna_live_for_free

Charliezoo wrote: »

I'm disgusted by my local Tesco Metro which has a small bakery. They NEVER reduce the bakery products at the end of the day but guess what? I pop in at 9pm and staff are shovelling the whole lot into black bin liners. Perfectly good rolls, pastries etc straight in the bin. If they bagged them up and sold them for a quid for 6 or something they'd probably have no problems selling them in the evening.

I really hate wasted food.

They do this in both Tesco near here, too. I did ask once why they were shoving rolls and bread into the "not fit for human consumption" bags (which 2 minutes earlier people were still buying) and was told that they send the bakery goods off for animal feed.

This would seem to bear that out

The centres also handle an increasing amount of food waste and, in a recent initiative, have recycled 10,000 tonnes of bakery waste for use in animal feed since August 2011.

http://www.norbert-dentressangle.co.uk/UK-news/Tesco-renews-and-extends-with-Norbert-Dentressangle