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!!!
