Category Archives: Supermarket

Marion Nestle Q & A

Marion Nestle is a Professor in NYU’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health and author of What to Eat, Food Politics and more. Marion was kind enough to share her insights on food waste and American’s eating habits in this e-mail interview. — WF: Not knowing when things go bad and what to […]

August 26, 2008 | Also posted in Composting, Household, Q & A, Restaurant | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Publix supermarkets recently announced a program to compost meat, produce and bakery items from 56 Broward County stores and all 237 S. Florida stores by mid-2009. Organic Recovery will convert the supermarket waste to a soil supplement by enzymatic digestion. Great news, but I’d love to see this kind of top-down approach to donating the […]

August 22, 2008 | Also posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Whole Changes

Here’s a really interesting article on how Whole Foods is attempting to shed its “Whole Paycheck” image. Read through waste-hued glasses, I found two instances of waste in the making. Whole Foods, through its in-store thrift tours, is steering shoppers towards bulk buying: Value packages of fresh cod and salmon were a dollar a pound […]

August 7, 2008 | Also posted in Household | Comments closed

Afternoon Reading

Check out this AP article on avoiding produce waste. I love the sentiment, but I have to take issue with two parts of this advice: The first step is to immediately inspect your goods once you get home and pluck out any spoiled specimens. Wouldn’t you inspect the fruits and vegetables before buying them? And […]

August 5, 2008 | Also posted in Household | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Because seeing is believing: Here’s the booty from a dumpster diving expedition that shows how much good food grocery stores throw out. — — Don’t waste that pigeon squab?!? UPDATE: I noticed that Berkeley’s famed Chez Panisse is featuring squab on August 9th. — — San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed fines to ensure […]

August 1, 2008 | Also posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Monday Morning Crumbs

Main post to come, but in the meantime…here’s an article examining supermarkets’ responses to rising food prices. No requests for in-store Wasted Food seminars (yet)… — I had fun writing this piece/interview on How You Eco. (Articles I’ve written or appeared in are compiled in the “Press” tab.) — And don’t blink or you’ll miss […]

July 21, 2008 | Also posted in Personal | Comments closed

Grocers Preparing Less Waste?

The other night, I was researching how the increased prepared food offerings in supermarkets leads to more waste. This happens because prepared foods are highly perishable and, if they’re not sold, are thrown out after a short time. In addition, salad bar and hot bar items can’t be donated if customers serve themselves. And stores […]

July 10, 2008 | Posted in Supermarket | Comments closed

Blame Game

Yesterday, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown fanned the food waste flames via comments to the media. Brown, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, showed his financial stripes in saying that food waste was partly due to “unnecessary demand.” If we are to get food prices down, we must also do more to deal with unnecessary […]

July 8, 2008 | Also posted in International | Comments closed

Thursday Buffet

Japan wastes one-fourth of their food, according to Japan’s Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry. As reported in China Daily, Japan tosses 19 million tonnes of food waste annually (about one-third of which is edible at the time of tossing). That percentage is a bit less than the U.S. (estimates range from one-fourth to one-half and […]

July 3, 2008 | Also posted in Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, International, Trayless | Comments closed

Picky, Picky

Fresh from the UK comes this food waste horror story: European Union sizing requirements required a British wholesaler to throw away 5,000 kiwis. Here’s a slightly less sensationalistic view of the story. An inspection of the fruit found that a number of the batch weighed 58 grams, with 62 grams the low-end limit. Tim Down, […]

June 30, 2008 | Also posted in Farm, History and Culture, International | Comments closed