We've Got This Very Wrong

[securespark]

Good food thrown away daily from supermarkets. Multiply that by the number of supermarkets in the country and how much food is that?

I thought there was an agreement that food would be gifted to charities etc for the homeless, but it would appear not.

I once asked my local Express if I could take the baked goods they were throwing in the bin to a local soup kitchen, but was told they couldn't, because if someone got food poisoning, they would be open to being sued.

This is an absolutely ridiculous situation and I can't believe supermarkets are doing this.

Verifying Device

 

[Deleted member 174758]

There are some street feeding charities which take food at the end of day. A few years ago I did some fit-out work for a homeless charity who took food, but only ever dried or canned produce or in-date wrapped stuff as they don't have the means to transport or store stuff. As we neared the end of the job they worked the kitchen up and we had free bacon butties every morning for a two or three days whilst they worked up the kitchen and trained the staff (most of whom are catering qualified or college trainees doing volunteerwork experience) - a bit cheeky, maybe, but it was the end of a 5 month refurb and they were still running a kitchen in their other premises...

 

[Justin Passing]

Saw an article which said much of the excess/unwanted food from the warehouses used to be exported, and that's now the main supply to the foodbanks.
In a local newsagent-cum-general store the guy said he buys short dated stuff cheap, so he sells it cheap. Quite a lot of stuff on his shelves had gone over - cakes & similar I noticed. I asked him if the rest went to food banks. Big family, he said.
Better than binning it.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

I used to pass the back side of a high street cafe/bakery type place on my way home from work, granted this was decades ago. I often used to see the staff tipping large trays of various cakes etc into the bin. I always thought 'what a waste' and it struck me as ironic that, up until 10 mins earlier, said stuff was on sale to the public!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The other thing you might see, certainly in the North and Midlands, is big vans bearing the name "Refood". They have a plant at Widnes where they "dewrap" sandwiches and other food which has expired, pulverize it and feed it into 3 or 4 large anaerobic digesters which produce gas at the top (filtered and fed into the gas grid) and compost at the bottom which goes out to commercial growers and compost baggers. They certainly take waste from M&S.

 

[Ihavenojob]

My wife tells me of the huge amount of food thrown out by the school kitchens she visits, all this is paid for by tax payers. The ridiculous idea of giving free meals to ALL school kids of a certain age is the main cause, they have to feed them on a budget, so they have to do the best they can in a difficult environment. She told me the budget per meal is less than £1, one of the meals consists of 3 fish fingers and other bits and bobs, the fish fingers cost 30 odd pence each.

 

[Dork Lard]

Be careful what you wish for. Hands up who wants to go back to a system where a major part of your time is spent sourcing food & a large percentage of your expendable income goes on paying for it.

Oh wait.

 

[Deleted member 18243]

If someone got food poisoning, they would open to bring sued

The legal profession is one is one of the biggest drains of the country's wealth and the root of many of its problems. Any revolution must start with drastically reducing the legal profession's reach.

 

[motorbiking]

I've always been impressed how French families cook great food with practically zero waste. The whole idea is the left overs from today form part of tomorrow's meal and it works really well. In the UK we tend to bin left overs.

 

[securespark]

I think leftovers are great. Stick it in the fridge and it's an easy snack or meal for the next day.

I make several soups at a time and put them in the fridge; they can be dipped into over the following few days for lunch or a first course. It's just handy to have something ready in the fridge.

 

[gas112]

We have a supermarket called the company shop there is a few of them throughout the country it is all excess and due to expire food from the likes of ocado , marks and sparks , waitrose . asda and morrisons . food is usually at least half price with certain stuff a tenth of the price some cracking bargains and its membership only for certain professions and people with a connection to food industry and logistics

 

[noseall]

I've always been impressed how French families cook great food with practically zero waste. The whole idea is the left overs from today form part of tomorrow's meal and it works really well. In the UK we tend to bin left overs.

The French are the worlds' chefs.

 

[The Samaritan]

I've always been impressed how French families cook great food with practically zero waste. The whole idea is the left overs from today form part of tomorrow's meal and it works really well. In the UK we tend to bin left overs.

We were shocked when we did a villa, self-catering hols in France coast for the first time when we went into one of their nice, massive supermarkets - the vast majorty of the food was fresh ie not tinned, frozen etc etc, we got caught out. They are a bit like indian cooking who often cokck veg/meat/curries etx - you can decide on the salt etc you add unlike tinned stuff etc. The Turks do the same as do Pakstanis.

 

[Dork Lard]

I've always been impressed how French families cook great food with practically zero waste. The whole idea is the left overs from today form part of tomorrow's meal and it works really well. In the UK we tend to bin left overs.

Yes. That's the system we try to adhere to. We throw almost nothing away & it makes shopping so much easier.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

In the UK we tend to bin left overs.

Speak for yourself. We often cook sufficient, but not to much, so mimimal waste. Spuds (mashed or boiled) left over from today go into potato cakes tomorrow, veg and some left over meats go into soups (especially in winter) and we use a good amount of dried legumes. We average about one bag of food waste a week going for compost (although there are only two of us, we are both at home at the moment) - mostly potato peelings, cabbage leaves and the like which you'd struggle to use. Possibly the result of being brought up at a time when money was tight and in a place where the nearest shop was several miles away, so we had vans that came - milk and bread daily, butcher three days a week, costermonger twice a week, fishmonger on Friday morning and so forth. Even the chip van only came three evenings a week - and if you missed him or any of them, that was that

We also used to grow a lot of our own veg and all our own fruit - I was a teenager before I had factory made jam