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What happens to all the left over food?


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Old 02-06-2013, 13:58
PJ2
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When I go shopping at big markets, all the food is on display in the stalls and looks gorgeous, but then when I go back towards closing time a lot of the stalls look like they haven't shifted two thirds of the stuff.

I just wonder what happens to it all because a lot of the things can't be kept for long.

Some stalls don't even look like they've sold 10% of the stuff and look like untouched displays of food art, and you just wonder how they make any money and what actually happens to the food because clearly no ones buying it.

Even when they reduce prices near closing time there's still tonnes of food left.
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Old 02-06-2013, 14:07
PJ2
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I mean you can go to an old fashioned sweet stall and see all the sweets that have been in the jars for months, years and have that stale taste and smell, but they ain't gonna kill ya.

But when you got to an ofal stall first thing in the morning and come back at the end of the day, and the stall looks exactly the same, what happens to it all because theyc an't keep refrigerating and freezing it all.
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Old 02-06-2013, 15:06
Ovalteenie
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I believe that many restaurants have bins for uneaten or perished food which are collected for pig swill. I imagine food stalls have arrangements for disposal otherwise it just decomposes into organic matter... Compost?
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Old 03-06-2013, 18:58
Isambard Brunel
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I know of a market where they get very nice purple grapes in sometimes. But they're only that nice on the first day they have them. If you buy them every subsequent day, they taste less and less nice, getting softer with each day.

Clearly they must buy a whole load of them and gradually sell them over the week. I imagine whatever's left on the stall at the end of the day just goes back out the next day. By the end of the week, they're selling them off for pennies.

A lot of on-the-turn food is probably sold off at a loss in a very short window near the end of the day, so if you're not there you'll never know. It's probably easier and cheaper to sell a bunch of grapes to an opportunist buyer for 10p than having to dispose of it after work.

Obviously the best solution would be for prisons to buy rotting food to feed the inmates...
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Old 03-06-2013, 19:05
katywil
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I worked in a supermarket bakery once. all the bread etc was thrown in the compactor and destroyed. it was a shocking waste as there was nothing wrong with it. if staff tried to take anything home they would be sacked for stealing so no one ever took anything.
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Old 03-06-2013, 19:53
clm2071
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Some retailers and supermarkets give left over stuff away to homeless shelters/charities - Pret A Manger in particular did it, they had posters up making a point of it.
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Old 03-06-2013, 20:42
PJ2
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I'm watching that new program about Swansea's Indoor market.

It's the last shopping day before Christmas and one of the fish mongers shut up shop with sooooo much fish left.
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Old 04-06-2013, 01:12
Hypnodisc
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Some retailers and supermarkets give left over stuff away to homeless shelters/charities - Pret A Manger in particular did it, they had posters up making a point of it.
It's a little different, but we put expired stock on Freecycle for all the freegans.

Waste not want not, and all that.
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