new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[3KillerBs]

Meat departments have been doing it for many years. I don't think it would cause more labor cost in the back of house areas for other departments/venues. I agree though, that front of house areas could be problematic.

What "back of the house"?

I know that in my store all unsalable fresh foods are trashed except for certain stale baked goods, which are donated to a food pantry.

Once they hit their sell-by date they can neither be sold nor donated. Period.

Nor can employees take them home -- even though we *know* that there's nothing *really* wrong with that 4lb hunk of Muenster that I shrank out on Monday and that an unsold ham could have its life extended by simply simmering it for an hour.

The only way they can leave the store is in a trash bag. Changing that would require installing a completely new system that can be both separated from the human-food stream AND protected against fraud by employees.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yup, nothing new here.

 

[Sally PB]

Yup, nothing new here.

Thank you for saving me the time and data (almost out here).

 

[U_Stormcrow]

What "back of the house"?

I know that in my store all unsalable fresh foods are trashed except for certain stale baked goods, which are donated to a food pantry.

Once they hit their sell-by date they can neither be sold nor donated. Period.

Nor can employees take them home -- even though we *know* that there's nothing *really* wrong with that 4lb hunk of Muenster that I shrank out on Monday and that an unsold ham could have its life extended by simply simmering it for an hour.

The only way they can leave the store is in a trash bag. Changing that would require installing a completely new system that can be both separated from the human-food stream AND protected against fraud by employees.

Decades ago, when I worked at a Pizza Hut, it was the same. Past prime dough was baked off, bagged, kept frozen, and donated to a pantry for the tax write off. In management training, we were shown how to do the math to determine if the benefit of doing so was worth its costs in labor and overhead. Hint: for most stores in the region, it wasn't. Lead to a discussion on the value of "community goodwill". Which lead to discussion on how to run the store more efficiently, so there was less waste and greater profit, and how that could then be "managed" by more visible donations to local community for purposes of writeoffs.

Everything else? (veggies, sauce, cheese, meats, "toppings") Straight to the trash, baggfed and tied, then to the dumpster - which for liability purposes, was behind a lock.

Simple economics. I doubt the math has changed much.

 

[Sally PB]

Any suggestions on breaking this cycle, anyone?

I can only see it working at a household level or perhaps in some neighborhoods, in today's society. Too many chances of lawsuits. Too much labor/overhead.

Maybe in a Communist society. Or in a SHTF scenario.

It does work in my small neighborhood. Kitchen waste is composted, or given to chickens. (Mine, or my neighbor's.)

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Any suggestions on breaking this cycle, anyone?

I can only see it working at a household level or perhaps in some neighborhoods, in today's society. Too many chances of lawsuits. Too much labor/overhead.

Maybe in a Communist society. Or in a SHTF scenario.

It does work in my small neighborhood. Kitchen waste is composted, or given to chickens. (Mine, or my neighbor's.)

its one of those things that doesn't scale up (like Communism). At a certain critical size, the necessary social links fail to hold things together, and behaviors break down into more individual focused tendencies.

We are still a tribal species, but when the tribe gets too big its mores begin to lose their grip on individual action.

Voluntary association is a big part too.

 

[Molpet]

Any suggestions on breaking this cycle, anyone?

I can only see it working at a household level or perhaps in some neighborhoods, in today's society. Too many chances of lawsuits. Too much labor/overhead.

Maybe in a Communist society. Or in a SHTF scenario.

It does work in my small neighborhood. Kitchen waste is composted, or given to chickens. (Mine, or my neighbor's.)

Would have to go back to small stores, which actually didn't have much waste because they tended to run out rather than go bad... and there wasn't sell by dates anyway.

 

[Brooks_]

What "back of the house"?

The area where more production than customer facing occurs. That area is mostly set up to be able to separate waste with little to no added labor.

Changing that would require installing a completely new system that can be both separated from the human-food stream AND protected against fraud by employees

Ask the meat dept what happens with the bone/fat/scrap/spoiled. Most likely* it gets picked up by a rendering plant for proteins to go to animal feed and fats to go to cosmetics. We can't go whaling anymore.

*not all areas have a rendering plant within reasonable distance.

I think the idea of getting more commercial waste is viable enough to look at more closely.

 

[EddieSalita]

Any suggestions on breaking this cycle, anyone?

I can only see it working at a household level or perhaps in some neighborhoods, in today's society. Too many chances of lawsuits. Too much labor/overhead.

Maybe in a Communist society. Or in a SHTF scenario.

It does work in my small neighborhood. Kitchen waste is composted, or given to chickens. (Mine, or my neighbor's.)

I have one.

Rather than blanket rules we could start with specific places where the environment is suitable and more easily possible to be controlled.

One such example is prisons. A vast amount of fresh food waste is created in prisons kitchens. I mean a scary amount. Think of the outer leaves of 500 cabbages every few days, that's just for one vegetable in a smaller prison.

It can be picked up prior to used by dates as there is daily delivery and waste management traffic anyway. It can be handled and pre treated correctly as there is supervision.

One could even go further and create the actual processing facility within the prison. Adding value and education opportunities within.

Translate this to the whole country and you have thousands upon thousands of tons of human food waste than could be processed appropriately on site, or transported away within regulation requirements for safety.

That's just the possibility. Now we get to the real issue. Of actually implementing it through all the Bureaucratic red tape, and stakeholders wanting their cut and make work jobs.

Aside from that.... prisons are a great opportunity to test and make a start to figure out how it could be taken further, and to create knowledge/experience in a controlled environment. They have nothing but time to waste and cheap labour.

It's so sad to see multiple trucks full of perfectly viable fresh food waste going to landfill on a daily basis. It's a massive wasted resource.

 

[Perris]

Yup, nothing new here.

You may know it all, but you frequently lambast other people's failings on the topic, so I hope your dismissive attitude will not deter more from watching it for themselves.