I didn’t really consider the reason the company gave for the dismissal. Though it occurs to me now that any incident where someone loses their job due to donating food nearing expiry could be plausibly written up as thievery by the company doing the firing.
Which is a nuance that might be worth chatting to a lawyer about.
SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Same reason grocery stores toss perfectly good food in locked dumpsters in lieu of donating it.
The only chain place with fresh food that donates their extra at the end of the day is Panera.
Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
And this is exactly why by law Italian supermarkets have to donate anything approaching its sell-by date.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Oh fuck. We need that law in the states.
Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
They’ll get there. The US is still working through the Italian playbook. They’re up to the 1930s.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
is this the kind of law you had in mind?
obinice@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Interesting, here in the UK they sell it at a discount, which greatly helps us poorer people afford food.
Ironically if it’s all donated to food banks instead, I’d never see it and would struggle more - I may be poor but I can afford food so I don’t want to take away from what others might need more than me.
The whole system is sadly broken anyway, so much food, yet so many hungry :-(
BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
I just recently became a department manager at a grocery store.
For us, any product close to expiry has three options. Reduce price by half, put product on FlashFood (an app for connecting grocers and shoppers to sell product at steep discounts), or freeze product at or before expiration date and donate to the food bank. Depending on the product, some can also be reused as an ingredient for the meals section. The goal is zero food waste for the whole corporation by 2030. The only exception to that I guess would be damaged product (punctured packaging, bad seal, etc).
ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
There’s a place near me that sells under-selling, damaged package, and past-sell-by-date processed food for a super steep discount. It’s priced like being in the 90s or early 00s. They buy it from grocery store distributors who collect items that are “returned” to them by the store, and it’s run by Amish which don’t seem bound by quite the same regulations…? Not entirely sure how they are allowed to do that, though there’s another place in the opposite direction that isn’t Amish and does the same thing, so maybe it’s just allowed here.
Since most packaged food is still good well beyond the sell-by date, this means I can buy dry goods, shelf-stable microwave meals, and condiment sauces, and fill my car trunk/boot for about $100. It’s pretty out of the way, so I only make it there every few months, but I stock up heavily when I go. I’d probably have needed food assistance or just starved if I hadn’t found that place. (I prefer not to use it since my understanding is that it’s not a forever benefit even if you need it forever, and circumstances may warrant use later)
Have to be super careful about what sorts of things you buy, some of it goes stale or separates a lot faster than other things, but it’s all still edible, and if I get stuff that’s not tasty to me, my chickens eat it and poop out eggs, so it’s not really a loss.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 1 day ago
I worked in a grocery store that had a little pizza making section. End of the day they’d throw out a lot of pizza. Management absolutely did not want employees to grab some at the end of the day.
Well, I was friends with the guy who worked there so he’d “throw it out” into my possession. I had a lot of free pizza back then.
Nowadays there’s an app “too good to go” where you can get cheap food at the end of the day from places. Not as good as free, but like four slices of pizza for $5 isn’t bad.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
is that app your chain specific or location because i love the idea
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 15 hours ago
So far as I know it’s available in a bunch of regions: www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us
NatakuNox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
We’re the only super power that refuses to agree that food and water are a human right.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 day ago
“Hey! Are you bootlegging that AIR? You gotta pay for that!”
NatakuNox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Oh and I forgot we are the only ones that think medical care and housing is pay to play as well.
ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They used to dump them in unlocked dumpsters but people figured that out and started pilfering the dumpsters. My dad, not poor at all but quite frugal/cheap, somehow heard about this and started taking me as a kid to go dumpster diving with him. It was crazy the amount of food we brought home for those couple years before places started locking the dumpsters. And there were a lot of people driving up and going through them just like us.
SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 1 day ago
There was an entire documentary about people dumpster diving at grocery stores for free food.
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 hours ago
That documentary is called: Dive! Living Off America’s Waste.
Here’s a trailer for it.
And here’s the full documentary on YouTube.