My local food bank can only provide 8 packages with referrals every time before you run out, and I have, but my situation hasn’t improved financially due to various set backs and I’m struggling to feed myself. I’ve heard that supermarkets throw out massive amounts, but have never been in a position where dumpster diving seemed feasible. People who do it, what time of day do you do it and how do you find good spots? UK resident for ref
In most urban places, an unlocked dumpster is asking for all sorts of things that normally cost extra to get dumped. Downtown Minneapolis, an open construction dumpster can go about a day without a mattress showing up (biohazard. Massive. Biohazard.) or shitloads of furniture.
In any case illegal dumping drives up the costs for people who do own the dumpster so most times, they’re locked at the very least.
But yeah, why the don’t donate food they’re not gonna sell , I dunno. That becomes a nice write off and a “we donate xyz fellgoods!”
I work in the grocery industry. For us it’s a liability thing. If you get sick and sue, it winds up costing us even if we win. Given the razor thin margins we operate on, we would have to increase prices to cover the extra cost.
The result is most grocery stores toss anything that doesn’t sell and lock the dumpster.
Some is donated, to be sure, but most is just tossed out.
then there is that, to be sure. lawyers have ruined a lot of things.
in any case, I suspect there’s also logistics involved- getting the donated food to the shelter.
The logistics issue is not that big of one. We’re a warehouse that runs our own trucks. We could get it there with only a bit of extra fuel burn. HOS might cause issues though. Additionally, the need is great enough that many food banks and shelters would be willing to come pick it up if we weren’t all (Grocery industry and food banks) afraid of getting sued to death by some person that got sick after eating something that was a day after it’s arbitrarily set use by date.
We at the warehouse salve our consciences some by donating fresh products directly to some food banks local to our warehouse, and a few of our stores order a little extra to donate locally, but it’s nowhere near the amount that gets tossed by the stores.
Most places do donate what they can’t sell, unless it’s compromised somehow. Not because of the tax write-off, because that’s kind limited and they basically hit the cap really early in the year. They do it because they don’t have to pay to dump it if food banks are taking it. Having the dumpster emptied out isn’t cheap. The less they need to do it, the less they have to spend on it.