Reply #9: Yes, it is true. The food that would have been discarded is still good food. [View All]

[Gormy Cuss]

Supermarkets (and manufacturers) remove some items before they're no longer good enough to eat for a variety of reasons. It's good quality food but no longer needed or wanted in the inventory and writing it off as donated is better sometimes than writing it off as spoilage or waste.

One example: at the food bank where my mother volunteered a local manufacturer of breaded fish for restaurants would send cases of "seconds," the fillets that weren't the proper weight or were not as evenly breaded as the product desired by the restaurants. There was nothing wrong with the freshness or flavor.

Another story she told was when a chain anticipated too high a demand for a product (say, a holiday ham or frozen vegetables) and knew after sales reports were in that they wouldn't be able to move all of the product before it was too old and tired to sell at a good price. Rather than sell it at a ridiculously low price in the store, sometimes the decision is to donate it to a food bank instead.


Of course, food banks also use the donation money wisely in the purchase of food directly from wholesalers to get the best price. Thank you for posting this thread to bring attention to Feeding America/Second Harvest.