Category Archives: Supermarket

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. Because the second day began in the afternoon, I missed the morning […]

As I mentioned last time, I began my first day working in a supermarket produce department throwing out about 50 pounds of fruit and vegetables. My first task was culling all of the packaged produce with a sell-by date that fell on that day, despite it being 8 a.m.  By the time I had finished throwing […]

My first day of work in a supermarket produce department began at 8 a.m. Ten minutes into it, I was throwing away food. They’d get to the orientation later, I was told, we had to “cull” all of the “out-of-code” products. They got me an apron and pointed me to the wall-length cold case of packaged produce. Basically, I had to pull all […]

In researching wasted food, I’ve spoken with supermarket spokespeople and executives who cling to the party line: ‘We really don’t waste much.’ Yet, I’ve also seen stores donate shopping carts full of unsellable but edible food while on food recovery runs. Imagine what happens at stores without established donation programs. To move past grocery stores’ […]