New Food Store Concept from Ex-President of Trader Joe's

[JennaTX]

Do stores generally throw all the past date food away? Several of the homeless missions by my office frequently have large trucks pulling up from grocery stores. I always assumed it was the past date food they were donating to the soup kitchen.

The store I work for sells grocery items and has a food court (sort of) area. Most of our food does go to donations (not sure if it is specifically a soup kitchen).

We sell ready to eat salads, sandwiches, etc. If the sell by date is 2/1/14 we take it out of stock on 1/30/14 and it gets thrown away because it is a refrigerated item. I get not wanting to sell items to a customer because they might be bad, but if you can't donate them why not put them in the employee refrigerator to eat?

Any refrigerated item that is found on a shelf or when you check out and decide you do not want is thrown away.

Non refrigerated items that are returned can be donated.

Although baby formula has to be thrown away. Not sure why if this is a federal/state law or maybe just the store that I work for. This is the one that just makes me sick with how many families would benefit from all of the formula that we throw away!

The news story that I saw about this new store said that America throws away 40% of its food....that is just crazy!!!

 

[java]

I know there is a store in PA that already does this.

Amelias grocery outlet.
http://www.ameliasgroceryoutlet.com/

I've been there and it is hit or miss. Sometimes great deals others not so much. The best by date is usually very recent. And yes I have bought frozen stuff just past date.

 

[tvguy]

The store I work for sells grocery items and has a food court (sort of) area. Most of our food does go to donations (not sure if it is specifically a soup kitchen).

When I volunteered at the food bank about 90% of their food is past due items donated by the local grocery store chains and bakeries. About 5% is donated from food drive donations and 5% from USDA Commodities.

Oddly, I have never heard anyone complain about the past due items, but some people just do not want USDA commadities, even those are always well before their expiration dates. So much so, there are signs up all over the food bank asking people to return any USDA Commodities they do not want, instead of throw them out.

I think moving to sell, rather than give away past due items is going to have a major impact on food banks.

 

[QVCshopper]

I have seen about to expire meat at Wegmans quite a bit. I look it over carefully because some of it looks bad.

I do however buy most of my meat from Target when it is marked down.

Trader Joes is due to open here soon.

My Wegmans old meat always looks so great. I buy it all when I'm lucky enough to find it. Seems like when the store is new, there's a lot, but it gets less and less as they get used to their sales amounts.

Pepperidge Farms outlets sells lots of expired items. They told me stuff like cookies and goldfish are still good three months after expiration.

 

[SGMCO]

I don't understand why they want to sell it (sounds kinda greedy)? why not donate it to those in need.