The amount of food being wasted by all shops, not just the big supermarkets, is appalling. There are some organisations and groups that collect and distribute some of this, but there are a lot of problems with a model that relies on basically setting up a second distribution chain, especially given it is dealing with perishable foods usually at their expiry date.
Given the shops already have the food there, and are set up to distribute food, I would like to see some sort of requirement for shops to directly give away the food themselves. If they know it is available people will come and take every last scrap of food if it is free. With no requirement for volunteers to be organised to come and pickup, move, store and distribute the food somewhere else, which is the hard part.
But then people wouldn’t buy food, and how would they make profits? /s 🙄
I’m on board with your idea though. Even if they just put the wrapped sealed items like bread (or bags of stuff) next to the bins people in need could safely take them.
But no. Bins are locked, cleaning chemicals poured over, excess clothing slashed. I don’t dumpster dive but have heard stories
I suspect fear of liability for people getting sick eating expired food, plus the cost of managing it, are more of a deterrent. Legislation / govt. advice making it clear that the shop won’t be liable would help, but there would also need to be legislation pushing them to absorb the costs of distribution. It might sound like a fairly simple thing to manage, but on top of the costs of having some space for the food, cleaning and throwing out spoiled items there is the issue of managing people. People can be quite horrible and anti-social, so you can expect there will be things like people throwing things they don’t want on the floor, tasting and spitting out food and getting into fights over who gets what - the possibility of getting something free seems to bring the worst out of some people.
I am incredibly lucky and have three distribution points within walking distance for food waste from various local bakeries and supermarkets, and it is a great resource but not everyone is grateful for it.
The amount of food being wasted by all shops, not just the big supermarkets, is appalling. There are some organisations and groups that collect and distribute some of this, but there are a lot of problems with a model that relies on basically setting up a second distribution chain, especially given it is dealing with perishable foods usually at their expiry date.
Given the shops already have the food there, and are set up to distribute food, I would like to see some sort of requirement for shops to directly give away the food themselves. If they know it is available people will come and take every last scrap of food if it is free. With no requirement for volunteers to be organised to come and pickup, move, store and distribute the food somewhere else, which is the hard part.
But then people wouldn’t buy food, and how would they make profits? /s 🙄
I’m on board with your idea though. Even if they just put the wrapped sealed items like bread (or bags of stuff) next to the bins people in need could safely take them.
But no. Bins are locked, cleaning chemicals poured over, excess clothing slashed. I don’t dumpster dive but have heard stories
I suspect fear of liability for people getting sick eating expired food, plus the cost of managing it, are more of a deterrent. Legislation / govt. advice making it clear that the shop won’t be liable would help, but there would also need to be legislation pushing them to absorb the costs of distribution. It might sound like a fairly simple thing to manage, but on top of the costs of having some space for the food, cleaning and throwing out spoiled items there is the issue of managing people. People can be quite horrible and anti-social, so you can expect there will be things like people throwing things they don’t want on the floor, tasting and spitting out food and getting into fights over who gets what - the possibility of getting something free seems to bring the worst out of some people.
I am incredibly lucky and have three distribution points within walking distance for food waste from various local bakeries and supermarkets, and it is a great resource but not everyone is grateful for it.
That’s fair enough, I would be leery myself. Also agreed about antisocial behaviour being common and ruining altruism for everyone.
It’s just hard not to be cynical about capitalism these days