Rey1756

In our store, customer service is located at the front. Mentioned above is how food is wasted in our end. At the back end of our store more food items are being thrown out daily. These are expired, soon to expire and excess prepared/cooked food that were not consumed for that day. Items would include beef, pork, chicken, fish, bread/pastries, salads, vegetables, fruits and eggs. Sometimes we throw them by the boxes. Did you mention donation? No multi billion dollar company would risk donating their excess food for goodwill just to end up being sued for food poisoning no matter your assurance that the food is safe. There is just no guarantee. In so called third world countries it is common to see scavengers scrounging for food at fastfood and restaurant dumpsters, food poisoning takes a back seat when your stomach is gnawed by hunger.

Back to my opening question. Just to give you an idea, the store I work for have hundreds of similar stores spread across the US. Some of them have bigger floor areas. Just think, what happens in our store is exactly what is happening in other stores every single day of the week. Go further, it is just not the store I work in but other similar retail stores, restaurants and fastfood. In a perfect world, if we have a "central collecting point" for all these excess food I can only imagine that the quantity would be so vast it would be more than enough to feed the hungry in the US and then some for developing countries. In a perfect world...but then where would life's ironies be?

# posted by Rey A @ 11/22/2005 11:20:00 PM