Category Archives: Supermarket

The Weekly Waste Word: What by?

At the beginning of each week, I try to give readers one tip on how to avoid food waste. This week’s advice: know the difference between sell-by and use-by dates. Use-by and best-by dates are decent guides for when an item shouldn’t be consumed. Sell-by dates, on the other hand, tell a store how long it […]

September 24, 2007 | Also posted in The Weekly Waste Word | Comments closed

Skin-deep Waste II

Yesterday we talked about how the desire for flawless produce leads to much waste. Pushing the issue further, who’s to blame for this desire? While Wayne Roberts’ article impugned food magazines, I’d also blame most supermarkets, especially Whole Foods. Most retailers make a point of having bountiful, beautiful displays. Doing so means throwing out imperfect, nonuniform produce. […]

September 6, 2007 | Also posted in History and Culture | Comments closed

Skin-deep Waste

Wayne Roberts, a Toronto journalist and occasional farmer has written a fascinating article in the current issue of Canadian publication NOW on how glossy magazines instill a desire for perfect looking produce. This causes unrealistic expecatations, and ultimately, waste. …most of the food we toss, perhaps one-fifth of the harvest, is wasted simply because it disappoints visual […]

September 5, 2007 | Also posted in Food Recovery, History and Culture | Comments closed

The Weekly Waste Word: Like the List

At the beginning of each week, I try to give readers one tip on how to avoid food waste. Here’s this week’s advice: Make a shopping list and stick to it. Grocery stores are masterful persuaders. Everything from the music to the lighting to the layout of a supermarket is set up to encourage you to […]

August 21, 2007 | Also posted in The Weekly Waste Word | Comments closed

The Produce Project: Day 4

I recently worked at a supermarket produce department for three months, an endeavor I’ve dubbed “The Produce Project.” On the first day of work, I got right into the action by tossing more than 50 pounds of “sell-by” date casualties and watching some computer training videos.   My fourth day began with more culling. As I pulled […]

August 16, 2007 | Also posted in The Produce Project | Comments closed

Making a list and checking it twice

Americans don’t eat about 25 percent of what they bring into their home. (That number comes from an interview I did with William Rathje, the former director of the University of Arizona’s Garbage Project.) How do we waste a quarter of the food we bring home? A decent chunk of that comes from buying too […]

July 30, 2007 | Also posted in Household, Stats | Comments closed

About that 27 percent

Whenever the discussion of food waste comes up, the 27 percent figure soon follows. According to the USDA’s helpful research wing–the Economic Research Service (ERS)–that amount of the edible food available for human consumption in the US at retail, restaurant and consumer levels is “lost to human use.” My 3 cents: 1. It’s incomplete. It […]

June 21, 2007 | Also posted in Farm, Processing Plants, Restaurant, Stats | Comments closed

Ugly Food

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Beauty is only skin deep. It’s what’s on the inside that counts. With the summer/local produce season upon us, I wanted to remind you that those expressions apply to produce as well as people. Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, the folks who wrote the book behind the 100 Mile Diet, address this […]

June 8, 2007 | Also posted in Farm, History and Culture | Comments closed

The Produce Project: Day 3

I recently worked at a supermarket produce department for three months, an endeavor I’ve dubbed The Produce Project. On the first day of work, I got right into the action by tossing more than 50 pounds of ”sell-by” date casualties and watching some computer training videos. The third day began at 7 a.m. with the familiar a.m. […]

June 6, 2007 | Also posted in The Produce Project | Comments closed

One word: Magnets

I’m not sure what to make of this but thought I’d pass it along. A Singaporean company called ESMo Technologies, claims to have developed a food preserving magnet.  In a supermarket test, the EsmoSphere supposedly increased meat’s shelf life by as much as 50 percent. Don’t believe it? Then you won’t be swayed by the company’s own photo case studies. […]

May 30, 2007 | Also posted in Food Safety, Household | Comments closed