Category Archives: Food Safety

Pot Pie Pandemic?

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 […]

October 17, 2007 | Also posted in Processing Plants, Supermarket | Comments closed

Schools’ Waste

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 […]

October 16, 2007 | Also posted in Institutional, School | Comments closed

Pick a Pepper

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 […]

October 9, 2007 | Also posted in Personal, Supermarket | Comments closed

Higher Value?

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 […]

October 2, 2007 | Also posted in Supermarket | Comments closed

Experimenting with the EsmoSphere

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 […]

July 9, 2007 | Also posted in Household | Comments closed

Rockin’ and Wrappin’

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 […]

July 2, 2007 | Also posted in Food Recovery | Comments closed

Replate: first-rate or not so great?

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 […]

June 14, 2007 | Also posted in Food Recovery, Waste Stream | Comments closed

One word: Magnets

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. […]

May 30, 2007 | Also posted in Household, Supermarket | Comments closed

Yesterday’s Sushi

Excess food is a part of the restaurant business.  I believe that reducing surplus food is the ideal, but that requires sacrificing either sales (only order a set amount for each day) or convenience (prepare food to order).  Sometimes those sacrifices just aren’t feasible. It’s what restaurants do with the excess that interests me. They have three main choices: throw it […]

May 29, 2007 | Also posted in Food Recovery, Restaurant | Comments closed

Beach (Food) Rescue

In maintaining this site, I occasionally hear about some clever food recovery schemes. Recently, Bill Spier wrote in and told me about his A Second Helping operation that collects unused groceries from beach rentals. What a perfect idea! When you’ve rented a vacation condo and bought a week’s worth of groceries, there’s inevitably some excess food. I know this […]

May 2, 2007 | Also posted in Food Recovery | Comments closed