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Two Ways to Rescue Unsold Food
comparison of different approaches
Price reductions have the advantage of being simple. Staff add a discount label late in the day, and shoppers who are happy to eat the food quickly get a bargain.
For this reason, many stores now use both methods in turn: products are discounted first, and whatever has not sold by the evening is set aside for collection.
The difficulty is that discounted items still have to be sold, and much of what is left at closing time ends up in the bin anyway. Donation avoids this problem, since charities collect food that would not otherwise be sold.
Supermarkets throw away large amounts of food that is still safe to eat, usually because it is close to its date label or its packaging is damaged. Two common responses are to cut the price of such items and to give them away to charities.
Donation, however, depends on organisation. Charities need vans, refrigerated storage and volunteers to collect on time, and smaller groups often cannot accept fresh food that will spoil within a day.