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 […]

This past Thursday and Friday, I witnessed stadium food donation in action. The non-profit group Rock and Wrap It Up! facilitated both events, a Mets game and a Bob Dylan concert. 
The baseball game was postponed due to an incoming storm. While disappointing for both baseball fans and bloggers, the rain out was a boon for food donation. Because the game was cancelled […]

A bunch of San Francisco “troublemakers who make good things happen in culture and commerce” are drawing much-needed attention to food waste. Language in Common recently launched a fascinating web campaign urging people to leave their unwanted doggie bags atop trash cans for hungry folks to eat.
Essentially, they’ve taken an observed behavior and made it a verb: Replate. Hmm…
Five things I like about […]

I’m not sure what to make of this but thought I’d pass it along. A Singaporean company called ESMo Technologies, claims to have developed a food preserving magnet. 
In a supermarket test, the EsmoSphere supposedly increased meat’s shelf life by as much as 50 percent. Don’t believe it? Then you won’t be swayed by the company’s own photo case studies.
You can […]