I was pleasantly surprised to find this story about food recovery on the MSN home page this weekend. It includes some nice reporting, such as:
Kroger’s Perishable Donations Partnership keeps 40 million pounds of food each year out of the landfill. It also saves each store $500 annually in waste-hauling fees.
Then there was this beaut of a quote from Feeding America’s media guy:
“Food expiration dates are often artificial,” explains Fraser. “If something says, ‘Please use by Dec. 15,’ it doesn’t mean you’re going to die of poisoning if you eat it on the 16th. It means the yogurt’s gotten more watery, (or) the cereal isn’t as crispy.”
But what’s most interesting about the story is the talk of the Renton Community Co-Op, a Washington group where member families take turns collecting food for all co-op members. It’s like any other food recovery group, except it seems (from the article) that the food meets a more middle class end instead of going to those truly down on their luck.
What do you make of that outcome? Are these folks competing with the downtrodden for a food source? Or just doing a shrewd job utilizing food that would otherwise be thrown out?
Comments
3 responses to “Cooperating, but for whose benefit?”
Shrewd as heck. I volunteer at a local organizatin that collects day-old bread, produce and dairy products and our mission is to help people through a tough time. A lot of the people, especially ones with young children, are having a hard time. But there’s also a fair share that drive in with a smoke going, fill up with groceries and head out. In my opinion, they should be volunteering. They’re healthy, have a working vehicle and somehow have enough money to buy smokes and get their drink on. After one food pickup and delivery, I went to the grocery store and ran into a guy who had just picked up food at our organization and he had a 18 pack of beer under his arm in the check out line.
If somebody were to pick up the food before me, limiting what I brought in, maybe we could be a little more selective about who we helped out. Families and seniors who truly need help.
There’s so much food being wasted, it’s really not a competition. Food is way easier to get than shelter, most places. The problem we always had at Food Not Bombs was finding someone to take all the food, not finding enough food for people.
And Paul’s example – there’s a chance that person would have chosen only beer and no food, if the food wasn’t free. And if he has kids at home or other dependents, they’d not get any food. Once you start judging “real” need you start pushing out people whose need you just can’t see.
I second what Rosa said (well put Rosa, especially on the issue of judging need). We also have more of a problem finding enough people to take and use all of the food we recover than anything else. There is so much being wasted, I’d rather someone, anyone eat it, than see it end up in the landfill.