Food Waste - Big Issue? Tesco set to try and tackle it

[theessexfox]

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/tesco-battle-breathtaking-level-food-220009757.html

 

[ithuriel]

When I worked at Asda in Oadby during the early 90s in the fresh produce section we would throw away Bananas for being frost damaged, ie, dull yellowish, since they are supposed to be kept at a certain temperature.

These days they sell them regardless and treat food to make it last longer, so how they are going to tackle waste should be interesting.

[Fox92]

They should try and make the carrier bags bigger and stronger first.

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

The food I waste most is fruit and veg that goes off before the sell-by date. I shop at Asda and the amount of times I've bought a bag of salad that's supposedly got 4 days life in it - the next day its all brown and wet. No problem with our fridge!

[Jon the Hat]

They should try and make the carrier bags bigger and stronger first.

No they should stop providing them.

[ithuriel]

They provide different types of carrier bag now that are supposed to biodegrade faster than the old type and they have a message on them to reuse or find some other use for it before discarding.

[MooseBreath]

Where they've started to charge for carrier bags the supermarkets have made the cheapest ones unavailable (or difficult to find) and are selling the more advanced kind at one assumes to be an absurdly healthy profit margin, the unscrupulous bastardos.

[Captain...]

Where they've started to charge for carrier bags the supermarkets have made the cheapest ones unavailable (or difficult to find) and are selling the more advanced kind at one assumes to be an absurdly healthy profit margin, the unscrupulous bastardos.

Thought you would be all for that rather than the socialist approach of free carrier bags for all.

Used to work in kwik save, they always charged for bags, not for any environmental reason, but because they actually cost money to buy, and they didn't see why the cost should be spread out across all customers the hit was on only those that actually used the plastic bags. Very few regulars bought them it was only the newbies that did and they soon learnt.

Edit: back on topic though, and despite their best efforts waste was a huge issue, despite checking every morning for today's sell by date on goods and reducing it by 50% and up to 90% by the end of the day, and the staff taking home anything left for free, the still ended up chucking loads of food and drink away.

There needs to be a change in mentality whereby a gap in a shelf is not such a drama, and buying in a crate of papayas because they sell 2 a week to some posh fella is not efficient, and keeping that one customer a little bit happier is not worth wasting a load of food.

[cambridgefox]

No they should stop providing them.

  

They provide different types of carrier bag now that are supposed to biodegrade faster than the old type and they have a message on them to reuse or find some other use for it before discarding.

I don't usually get involved in too many debates,because frankly I'm not that good at it,but being in the packaging industry,I'm inundated with literature regarding goverment/ green / recycling of plastics.When I have a little more time I will post some of it,it has both sides of the argument ,but you will see the lack and quality of bags is doing more harm than good.You will have to trust me for the time being,but it will astound you.Ireland was the first to charge for bags and since then the use of thicker bin bags has trebled because people under estimate the use and therefore use more plastic,by buying thicker bin liners,having said that recycling plastics is much cheaper energy wise and a simple process(91% less than corrugated)However bio bags are not too easy to recycle.the amount of bags that goes into landfill is 0.05% and don't give off hardly any harmful co2 emissions.Driving an extra 20 miles a year gives a higher carbon footprint PA than the annual household consumption of bags.

I have just scratched the surface,but a lot gets hidden from the public because it looks good to SOUND green because people's perceptions are that plastic is bad,I mainly deal in corrugated so its not just me with my packaging hat on as I know the extreme cost involved in recycling that.