Salvage Food Stores...would you shop?

[DCLSecondChance]

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...-old-and-expired-supermarket-products/251052/

As darkness falls, your local supermarket becomes a hive of activity. From canned vegetables and salad dressings to fresh fruits and deli meats, countless items are removed from shelves by night staff. Approaching their expiration dates or because they are no longer at their peak quality, most stores consider them unfit for sale. With 15,000 different products in an average supermarket and 25,000 in a superstore according to the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), retailers in the U.S. are lumbered with endless pounds of past-their-prime items every year.


So what comes of all of this food? Fresh vegetables and meats are often cooked up for in-store deli and salad counters before they spoil, says supermarket consultant David J. Livingston. A portion of it is inevitably thrown into the garbage and ends up in landfills. But a surprisingly amount of it finds a second home. Some is given away to food banks, some sold to salvage stores, and the rest taken by people who scrounge outside supermarkets.

 

[scrapquitler]

We have a discount food store near me, and it's very close to the local food co-op. I never realized until recently that it is actually a salvage store connected to the co-op. They have mostly outdated foods and things that just didn't sell at the co-op, I suppose.

I have purchased some things there: cookies and chips just slightly past the expiration date (they were fine), coffee beans, some soups and canned goods. Most of these things are fine past the expiration date anyway, and the prices were really good. They also had a lot of frozen foods and things like milk and yogurts I noticed that some of those items were not just a few days out of date, I saw yogurts that were several WEEKS out of date. Those I would NOT buy. I always worry more about perishable foods that are past the sell by date than things like canned goods, I worry that they thawed and were re-frozen or whatever.

I guess that if you are careful, there's no reason not to purchase foods this way. I'm a little picky and get nervous when stuff is out of date, but it depends on the product.

 

[Wadecool]

We have a store nearby called The Bent-n-Dent run by some local Amish folks. DW buys quite a lot of stuff there.

 

[monkeyboy]

I am gonna go ahead and move this to the Budget Board........

 

[KristaTX]

I am gonna go ahead and move this to the Budget Board........

 

[Cindy B]

I shop at the Entenmenns Thrift store.. so I guess I do.

When I lived in PA, there was one near my SIL's house. Although we lived - in an affluent town, (through a purely cheap rental) we still struggled. I used to drive my beat up car and my kids to this store and laugh all the way to the bank. One day, lo and behold, I ran into an acquantaince from my mothers group. She was a super fancy person who looked alarmed that I would "tell" on her.

It reminded me of that Everybody Hates Chris episode where the Mom doesn't want anyone to know that she uses food stamps in the grocery store.

 

[tvguy]

If we have salvage stores here in California that I am not aware of. Stores here actually have locks on their dumpsters to keep people from taking outdated food (and suing the store). My son's best friend works at a grocery store, and they are REQUIRED to smash eggs at their expiration date so nobody will take them and eat them.
When I volunteered at the Food Bank, things like orange juice were all stuff about a week past the freshness date that the distributors had donated.

Now, I grew up eating canned goods with dents in the cans...my dad worked at a cannery, and brought those home because in the late 1950's and early 1960's they couldn't sell dented cans. Now it is legal and I see dented cans all the time, selling at full price.

 

[happygirl]

I would

 

[happygirl]

I am gonna go ahead and move this to the Budget Board........

So no one on this board looks for deals??

 

[leebee]

We eat yogurt here at home that has an expiration date that's well past, like a month out of date; they occasionally float to the back of the fridge, and, well, you know. Yogurt is milk that has already been fermented and has a rather acidic pH, so only a limited number of specific organisms could grow in it anyhow (like the bacteria they use to turn milk to yogurt). If yogurt is really spoiled, it smells rotten, like bad meat; "good" yogurt has a fresh, somewhat sour smell. As long as the seal is solid and the smell is "clean", it's OK to eat yogurt that's a bit past the expiration date.

I don't purchase milk that's past the expiration date, but if that date comes and goes while the jug is in my fridge, we don't throw it out; we finish it. I also buy beef or lamb that's past it's expiration, or about to expire, as long as it doesn't look nasty; I'm a little more hesitant about chicken and pork; the processing method used for them potentially exposes them to more, different kids of bacteria, and I find that they spoil easier than beef.

Bread, baked goods, etc.? I always shop the half-price/discount bakery outlets!

 

[luvsJack]

There is salvage store not to far from here. Right after Katrina, it was the only place open with any kind of groceries left on the shelves so we went in and got a few things we could heat up on the grill.

I opened one can of soup. It looked weird and tasted worse. Threw the rest of it away. Haven't been back in there since.

But, my in laws shop in a different one and everything they get seems to be fine.

 

[tasha99]

I used to shop at what we called "the used bread store." It was an Orowheat outlet, and you could buy their winter wheat or 3 seed bread for $1.50 a loaf, and they weren't even stale. Now I have to buy that in the supermarket and pay $5.50 a loaf.

 

[Wadecool]

I opened one can of soup. It looked weird and tasted worse. Threw the rest of it away.

Was the can dented? I have always heard that if a can gets dented, it messes up the film on the inside that preserves the contents, thus the spoiled food.

 

[hereyago]

Where I live is a Wonder Bakery outlet store. They have bread that will expire soon. So a loaf of Wonder is .99 and bread in the store is almost 3.00. Then they will have a "clearance" area of different things. So bread that is about to expire the next day will be put in this area and it will be 2 for 1.00 or 10 fruit pies for 1.00.
I don't eat fruit pies anyway. but the bread I've never had a problem with. I put them in the freezer, plus bread at the house goes fast.

Yes certain things with expiration dates really shouldn't be eaten. However, we have been "groomed" to snub our nose at even dented boxes,etc.

I watched a show the other night, Food Network maybe called The Big Waste. It was really astonishing how much food goes to waste that stores can't sell because people won't buy a tomato with a spot on it, or there was a farm who's corn crop had been put sideways on the ground from a hurricane and there was nothing wrong with the corn, but no one wanted to buy corn that was on the ground.

So Bobby Flay and another chef Michael teamed up and then 2 woman chefs teamed up to compete to see who get make the best dishes from these discards that people and stores wouldn't except.

 

[sasywtch]

If we have salvage stores here in California that I am not aware of. Stores here actually have locks on their dumpsters to keep people from taking outdated food (and suing the store). My son's best friend works at a grocery store, and they are REQUIRED to smash eggs at their expiration date so nobody will take them and eat them.
When I volunteered at the Food Bank, things like orange juice were all stuff about a week past the freshness date that the distributors had donated.

Now, I grew up eating canned goods with dents in the cans...my dad worked at a cannery, and brought those home because in the late 1950's and early 1960's they couldn't sell dented cans. Now it is legal and I see dented cans all the time, selling at full price.

TV Guy, Canned Food Outlet or something like that on Watt Avenue by Whitney (I think it's Whitney). (between Auburn and Marconi). They have some salvage in there.

Since there is only 2 of us now, I just hit WinCo but I wouldn't have a problem with slightly out of date can goods.

 

[VAfamily1998]

I used to live near a "bakery outlet". It had Entenmanns, Oroweat (Arnolds on the East Coast), Thomas' English muffins, and Bob's Mill, and I think a few other brands? The stuff always had at least a few more days before the "sell by" date.
I was sad to move away from that

I don't know if there are any salvage food stores near me now? I know that when I go to the grocery store, I always look in the meat department for the marked down meat--it's stuff that the sell by date is that day...sometimes I've been able to make something new for dinner that night, or I'll freeze it and use it later. I'll also look at some of the day old baked goods and get those if I see a deal.

 

[mombrontrent]

I live in Canada so maybe we don't have these here because I have never heard of anything like a Salvage Store. I know there are factory outlet stores around though. I assume the way they work is that when food is close to experation the store sends it back to the company and the company sells it for a discounted price in their outlet store.

I probably wouldn't shop there though. Sometimes I buy dicounted items from the grocery store, depending on what it is. I will buy a tray of cut of fruit or veggies from the deli for 50% off. The produce was usually cut about 2 days before and I'll buy it for the family to snack on that day. I never buy discounted meat (just to paranoid, I try to use it at least 2-3 days before the expiration date) or bread products (while I know for sure these are fine to eat I just don't like baked goods or bread products unless they are very fresh, if it's the slightest bit stale it tastes gross to me). I won't buy dented cans but if I notice that a can in my cupboard is slightly dented I'll definatley use it.

 

[Coconut36]

If we have salvage stores here in California that I am not aware of. Stores here actually have locks on their dumpsters to keep people from taking outdated food (and suing the store). My son's best friend works at a grocery store, and they are REQUIRED to smash eggs at their expiration date so nobody will take them and eat them.
When I volunteered at the Food Bank, things like orange juice were all stuff about a week past the freshness date that the distributors had donated.

Now, I grew up eating canned goods with dents in the cans...my dad worked at a cannery, and brought those home because in the late 1950's and early 1960's they couldn't sell dented cans. Now it is legal and I see dented cans all the time, selling at full price.

Here they also had to pour milk down the drain rather than put it in the dumpster full.

If such places exist here I am unaware of them as well..in fact I know for a fact via volunteering activities at the food banks that no expired, dented, or damaged food could be used or put in the food boxes so here anyway salvage stuff is not going to food banks.

It would depend on my financial need and the items in question. I will fully admit I am extremely uptight about food safety and food standards so items like lunch meats, dairy or eggs or any other meat type product never. Dented cans also a never (there was an in dept discussion during a food handling certification class I took years ago about the bacterial risks that can occur in dented cans..ugh).

Chips, crackers or something like that at expiration I would consider as that is generally about freshness/optimal taste not safety whereas perishables are a little more serious.

 

[emma'smom]

One day, lo and behold, I ran into an acquantaince from my mothers group. She was a super fancy person who looked alarmed that I would "tell" on her.

It used to be that way in our town...everyone shopped at the expensive grocery store...and it would always boggle my mind to know that the very same product was sometimes .50 or even 1-2 dollars more in stores across the street from each other. However, we only have two grocery stores...the fancy one and Wal-Mart-- and a lot of folks don't like to shop at Walmart for a number of reasons.

But here's the interesting thing-- as Aldi's has become more socially acceptable, and the economy continues to struggle--everyone (including the super fancy people) are starting to gravitate to Aldi's as a non-Walmart alternative to the one expensive shop. It is now a bragging point among the "super fancy" set to accept a complement on a dish with "Thanks...and can you believe I got all the ingredients at Aldis?"

Social values are so crazy!

 

[bekkiz]

In our area, it's called gleaning. A friend of mine did it a lot when she first decided to stay home with her kids. In return for taking the stuff off the sheleves, she would earn credit at the store. It's really helpful for people who are on a very tight budget.