Reply #20: Around here it becomes animal feed. Some info. [View All]

[Xithras]

Many of my companies clients are groceries. First off, you have to understand that many large grocery stores do NOT actually own the produce they sell. They arrange to receive produce from a wholesaler and remit payment to that wholesaler only for produce that sells. The store doesn't make any profot on food that goes bad, but it doesn't take a loss either.

This complicates things a bit. Stores, in this case, cannot simply give away dated produce because they don't actually own it. Where I live, wholesalers have established a secondary market with farmers and deliver waste food for animal feed. In areas where no such secondary market exists, the wholesaler may just tell the store to trash the leftover fruits and veggies. If the store were to simply give away the food, the wholesaler could demand that the grocer PAY them for that food, since the grocer "sold" it, albeit at no cost. A wholesaler would probably win that lawsuit.

Secondly, in many areas there ARE groups that do exactly what you are suggesting. Not all wholesalers toss or resell old veggies. Some do donate the food to charities who distribute them to the poor. This allows the wholesalers to write off their potential loss as a charitible donation. Whether or not the food is donated often comes down to the financial bottom line of the particular wholesaler...if the tax savings exceed the potential profits from a secondary sale, it will get donated. Otherwise, it gets fed to the animals or turned into mulch.