Supermarkets and food waste?

What do you think supermarkets could do to cut down on food waste?

When the food in our local Mr T's is getting to its end date they hardly reduce it and very often only match the cost of buying 2 of the same in an offer Anything that is left over should get a really good reduction so its sells rather than gets dumped.

better reductions, giving food away to staff.

I think they order so much in because they always want to be in stock and dont want people to go elsewhere. I guess its not easy to always get it right.

I think buying habits need to change too. just because a carrot looks a bit wiggly, doesn't mean it doesn't taste like a carrot. apples shouldn't be a uniform size and shape. cucumbers should not be straight etc.

I agree.

Having worked in a supermarket and dealt with the waste the best thing they could do is have better stock control methods in place and reduce going out of date items a lot earlier in the day. I had days where I was throwing bags and bags of food into the compactor and it disgusted me. Nothing wrong with a nobbly carrot!

we have another large supermarket opening here in Feb 2012. Do we really need any more?

As we're in a recession and supermarkets are throwing tonnes of food away every day whilst some people go without or shop lift.

Supermarkets could reduce their food waste by packing a mixed bag of products at a low price to give customers the opportunity to try different products at a token cost. This could stimulate customers to purchase products they'd never considered before too.
so save waste disposal costs and generate future food sales and customers would probably purchese full price products whiilst they were in the supermarket buying the products to try bag.

parsley wrote:As we're in a recession and supermarkets are throwing tonnes of food away every day whilst some people go without or shop lift.

Supermarkets could reduce their food waste by packing a mixed bag of products at a low price to give customers the opportunity to try different products at a token cost. This could stimulate customers to purchase products they'd never considered before too.
so save waste disposal costs and generate future food sales and customers would probably purchese full price products whiilst they were in the supermarket buying the products to try bag.

The supermarket I use does this. Not every week but during the summer they do a salad bag and they do a root veg bag in the autumn as well as the usual stew packs that are available everywhere.

Also veggies and fruit should not be placed into plastic it means the fruit and veggie 'sweat' then go moudly very quickly

Lets go back to paper bags and not buying pre packaged fruit and veg.

Some shops are very good are reducing items other's arn't.

We alway check the reduced items for something tastie to make up for dinner on a 'shopping night'

Saw this Guardian article this morning. They are changing their packaging so it no longer says "freeze on day of purchase" in the hope that people will freeze things before they go off even if they don't freeze it straight away. I know it seems like people should just use their noggin and know that already but not everyone does and for as long as we have use by dates and all that some people will live by the label. And if this little word change gets people to stick stuff in the freezer rather than the bin then it's a good idea imo.