Surely there has to be a better way?

Daughter drives refrigerated arctics all over the country delivering mainly to massive supermarket depots. The other day she was delivering a whole lorry full of lamb chops to a Tescos (might have been a Lldles) not sure. Because for various reasons there was a delay and the chops didn't get to the depot at the allotted time the whole lot were rejected!There was absolutely nothing wrong with the chops as they had been refrigerated so had not deteriorated at all yet something in the region of £25,000 of lamb was deemed useless. To me this is obscene.
This is just a small example of the waste that goes on which I hear about regularly.
We as a nation would also appear to have become extremely picky about our food and have followed the Americans! IE everything has to look perfect with no blemish of any kind however minor, of uniform size and often taste of not a lot!. I ran my own Smoked Salmon business for many years. I went to huge trouble and expense to obtain the best fish and smoked it in the traditional way actually over smoking wood. The resulting product did have the odd smut on it and wasn't a uniform colour always but tasted WONDERFUL. After some years I eventually gave in and then had the Salmon smoked in a more commercial manner as that is what the majority of my customers wanted. The product was bright pink looked very pretty and tasted fairly revolting but customers liked it. Nowadays you'll be lucky to find anywhere which sells "proper" smoked Scottish Salmon and soon nobody will remember what it was actually meant to be like, certain not the pink mush you see in all the supermarkets.

 

It is sad the waste in general. Would'nt it be interesting, if stores like this have a close by canning company, so when the "fresh" is sort of less fresh but still good it can be rolled over to the canning company for processing. And how about, advertising a manager sale of items 3 days old to customers willing to take it home and use it now, or process it now. (freeze/can). I love avocados, but when I see a really soft one, too soft, I know its going to waste still the high price sits, why not move the softer over to a cheaper bin. One of my stores sells day old bakery at half the cost, hey its still good, and I can't bake it for that price. How about advertising when certain items are being delivered to the store, like a fruit day, a fish day, so people know when to get there for the prime fresh day of the item. Just thinking. In general they Tesco-probaby over buys and has to have it always look abundant, or available for fear someone would go elsewhere.

 

Went to a farm shop today and bought a 25Kg sack of unwashed Maris Piper spuds for £5.95/24p per Kg that we will use for baking.

Tesco loose washed baking potatoes are on 'special offer' at the moment @ £1.45/Kg so we 'saved' £30.30 on Tesco's inflated prices. http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=253558183

The same place sells Calor gas @ nearly £10 less for a 19Kg cyclinder than local suppliers, their coal is £2/bag cheaper and layers pellets and corn £4/bag cheaper.

But it costs an extra £6 in fuel to go there. So we fill the car and combine the trip with something else in the area, such as filling the tank with fuel @ 5p/litre cheaper than around here, so that's another £2.50 saving.

Today we also combined it with shopping at the local 99p shop to stock up on double packs of mousetraps before the pests start becoming a nuisance in greenhouses, polytunnels and onion beds.

So we don't buy local!

P.S. We did buy some spuds from a more local farm shop when there were some 50% off vouchers to use there in The Telegraph, but even with that discount it was only marginal and they kept whinging about how little profit they were making on the deal that it rather spoilt the money saving experience.

 

I think the clue lies in the fact that if its not sold it must be destroyed.
Any other way and the big boys lose a sale.
The last thing they want is free or cheap food, (due to sell by date), kicking around in the system. Its bad business.

Farm shops are the other way of doing it, but most of them are actually selling stuff that is not really local, how about those trendy "farmers markets"?

 

The website 'Love Food Hate Waste' advises that limp biscuits can be revived by putting them in the oven on a low heat for a few minutes.

Given the price of gas nowadays, it'd be cheaper to just buy another packet of biscuits.

 

Spot on, Clue! I help a market-gardener friend plant, sow, harvest and deliver.....and the only people who make a profit from his efforts are the wholesalers, middlemen and supermarkets. There is no great distance involved, either.
The producers (of any product) are entirely at the mercy of these leeches unless they have enough family or friends to be able to staff direct outlets and sell to the public at fair prices. It's a direction that is gaining ground over here, with farmers markets, night fairs and even car-boot sales. The producers aren't greedy....they just want to cover their costs and make a modest profit.
I used to spend half my life in Tesco.....you live and learn.

 

So perhaps stores can do a write off of thrown out stuff.

 

That's a very good point. Our government regularly bangs on pretending to actually care. They could put their money where their mouth is by ensuring that the tax rules prevent such waste from being written off as losses.