ABC News reports that Amelia’s Grocery Outlet, an 11-store supermarket chain in Pennsylvania, is selling groceries that have old promotions, damaged packaging or an expired sell-by date. I’m sure they’re receiving their Easter stuff as you read this.
1. This story was pegged to the recession, but there’s not much new here. There have always been […]

The beef recall saga continues, unfortunately.
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I’m sad to report that students at my alma mater are wasting lots of food. Come on, Wesleyan–you’re better than that.
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On the other side of the college coin, Columbia University has begun a “Trayless Thursdays” experiment. Ditto for Williams College. Not to split hairs, but wouldn’t ‘Trayless Tuesdays’ […]

Not surprisingly, there’s been some fallout from the largest beef recall in U.S. history. You know, the one that didn’t really need to happen. Many retailers are frustrated at having to toss perfectly good food.
Recently, Seattle-area landfills have started burying cases of meat that were at school cafeterias. A King County landfill received 230 20-to-30-pound […]

Yesterday, Westland/Hallmark Meatpacking Company recalled the most beef in US history. The 143 million pounds of meat was more than four times greater than the next highest amount. In fact, the recalled beef is enough to serve two burgers to roughly every American. Now imagine every man, woman and child throwing away two hamburgers (minus […]

Imagine food wrapping that could indicate the presence of E. coli or salmonella. Or a swab that could signal when other pathogens are present.
Sunday’s New York Times Magazine featured this technological breakthrough in its “Year in Ideas” list. While no products are available yet, a consortium of Canadian universities and companies, Sentinel Bioactive Paper Network, will soon release many […]

After concerns that some of its Banquet poultry pot pie products may be linked to an outbreak of salmonella, ConAgra recalled all Banquet and store brand pot pies last week.
The reason more than 165 people in 31 states got sick is because they didn’t get the freezer pies hot enough. Because these pot pies are not ‘ready to […]

It’s not often that we get front page food waste news. Because wasted food is so commonplace in America, it’s not usually newsworthy. 
Yet, an article generally makes the cut when the squandering costs more than a half million dollars and includes a nice helping of fraud. That’s what happened Sunday, when The Commercial Appeal broke a humdinger of an investigative story about mismanagement […]

Would you pay a quarter for this pepper?
That’s what I paid yesterday for this pepper that I found on my supermarket’s reduced price rack. It came packaged with a similarly blemished pepper (see below) for 50 cents. Not surprisingly, I’m a big believer in this idea.
As we’ve discussed before, many supermarkets shoot for perfect-looking produce. Anything that doesn’t reach […]

Yesterday we visited the topic of bagged produce. Here are three more points on so-called “higher value produce,” fruits and vegetables that are washed, cut and sold in packages. 
1. Cut fruit breaks down faster than cut vegetables. It starts to go about 4-5 days after processing, so don’t buy that fruit salad too far in advance […]

I recently wrote about the EsmoSphere food preservation magnet that can slow food waste. Since its kind Singaporean manufacturers sent me a sample, the least I could do is test it out and share the results.
Since I received the seafood model, I decided to assess it with the sea life I cook most often: shrimp.
At the seafood counter, I had the […]