donating expired food

[compassrose]

According to the former holding manager of the Family Dollar in Socorro, NM (my daughter), the FD store policy is destroy the food. If the employees take it and donate it, the employees WILL be fired. It is in the employee handbook. My daughter has been told (by someone associated with the local food bank) that you have to have a license to sell and/or giveaway expired food. Food banks etc have this license. If there wasn't something preventing it, don't you think that the stores would be giving it to the food banks? Or are you one of those "all corporations are evil" people. If you have a problem with this then you need to start contacting every store in the US and bitch about it. As far as that goes, there must be something to it because otherwise the local charities would be standing at each store to pick up the food. The local catholic church would have a standing order for the food. And the local catholic church is NOT all that wealthy.

 

[compassrose]

http://rgisblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/expired-food-is-it-illegal-to-sell-them.html takes you thru 3 pages of what they do /should do with expiring food (please note they do suggest donating "about to expire" food but not "expired" food.

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-do-grocery-stores-do-with-leftover-food.htm

http://www.examiner.com/article/donating-food-for-the-holidays-be-sure-it-hasn-t-expired

Here is a link to MANY links. Just to keep you busy reading...
http://www.ask.com/web?am=broad&q=d...&gc=0&dqi=&qsrc=999&ad=semD&o=11660&l=dir&af=


And let's not forget in case the conflicting articles get you confused, if you read it on the internet, it must be true.

 

[old grey dog]

[font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Wow compassrose pretty snarky reply[/font]

[font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Yes it is that easy, donate expired food to a non profit, no licenses needed, what is lacking is the will

"Are you one of those...all corporations are evil?"  Not at all the vast majority most of my working life was spent in big corporations.  

"If you read it on the internet it must be true" yet you post a bunch of links, the irony is not lost on me

"in case the conflicting articles get you confused..." now that is just mean spirited

I have no interest in reading your links or calling every store in America, nor any interest in arguing with you.[/font]

 

[ccbreder]

Food banks do not want your expired food. "here poor person, have the food i think is garbage. But, you know, like you are poor, you can eat it."

 

[cyndi]

As someone who used to run a regional food bank and emergency services facility, that was subsidized by federal, state and local governments and it's own national board, I can tell you we never distributed expired food. It was not allowed by any of the agencies that supported our organization.

As a letter carrier for the USPS I can tell you that we threw out thousands and thousands of pounds of expired non-perishables. Didn't matter if they were canned, in jars or plasti bags. These expired foodstuffs are not distributable.

For a better understanding of the terms expired, best by, used by, etc., see : http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/do-food-expiration-dates-matter

 

[Canine]

Me and Vic have eaten a lot of expired food during our lifetime.I think most food anymore doesn't have an expiration date,just a "best by" date.We used to buy a lot of used bread at the bread outlet.I have saw estimates that say the American people waste 40% of the food in this country.Just going by my grandchildren's actions and habits,I think that figure may be too low.

 

[Canine]

Pulled up and read"the Good Samaritan Act".This bill protects people who donate food,even though the food may be unmarketable.Many Safeway stores and other grocery stores donate expired food to several food banks without fear of being sued.To me this is only common sense.Why would food be good one day,but at the stroke of midnight it suddenly becomes harmful?I guess Walmart used to donate all of their expired food also,but decided they could make more profit by throwing it away and forcing the poor people to buy more food.Maybe poor folks will have to become "Dumpster Divers".Probably laws against that too.We are a wasteful society.Present company excluded,of course.

 

[akrvbob]

It's very confusing because everybody is providing evidence for their position.

However, it is NOT worth FIGHTING over. Let's see if we can just discuss it calmly. Here are things I know to be facts because I've done them.

I know you can go to the dent-and-scratch tents at Quartzsite and buy expired food. I've been going to the same one for years.

Having worked for Safeway all my life I know for a fact we sent all our dented and out of date food back to the warehouse where we were told it was sold or given away. We loaded it up in banana boxes and put it on a pallet and when a pallet was at least half full we shrink wrapped it and put it on a trailer going back to the warehouse.

I've seen those same banana boxes at the scratch and dent store in Quartzsite loaded up with out of date Safeway brand products.

Those are all facts I can verify as an eye witness and the guy who loaded the banana boxes at a Safeway store and sent them back to the warehouse and who has bought Safeway brand out-of-date products in Quartzsite.

You can each interpret the facts as you see fit.
Bob

 

[compassrose]

[font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Wow compassrose pretty snarky reply[/font]

[font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Yes it is that easy, donate expired food to a non profit, no licenses needed, what is lacking is the will

"Are you one of those...all corporations are evil?"  Not at all the vast majority most of my working life was spent in big corporations.  

"If you read it on the internet it must be true" yet you post a bunch of links, the irony is not lost on me

"in case the conflicting articles get you confused..." now that is just mean spirited

I have no interest in reading your links or calling every store in America, nor any interest in arguing with you.[/font]

Sorry, I did not mean it to come off as snarky. But all those articles had very conflicting info. And you came off as one of the "all corporations are evil" folks (you know the ones... with their evil corporation made clothes, evil corporation made car, evil corporation made cell phone and evil corporation made toys). Unfortunately I cannot delete or edit the post (I hate that about this forum). So I will just leave the thread.

 

[Queen]

When I worked with mentally ill homeless adults I spent a fair amount of time at our local food bank. They had many expired items and since we lived in the same town as Kraft Foods they got loads of overstock/expired/experimental brands from them. The food bank had lists of things that were acceptable to sell after the date and were very focused on providing safe quality food to their customers.

 

[Rivmage]

I think a lot of the confusion comes from the sell by/use by/best by and expired dates on food. Truly expired foods can't be used, the other dates just means the nutrient and flavor maybe less than optimal.

Scott