Posted on 07/11/2011 11:14:36 AM PDT by La Enchiladita
Lots of people adore funky grocer Trader Joe's. Its vegan pad thai is apparently so delicious that it sparked a smackdown between two women in the frozen-food aisle of a Manhattan location in January. However, the activists at Change.org want to pick a much bigger fight with Trader Joe's: They're accusing the chain of wasting food.
Their campaign got a kick-start from documentary filmmaker Jeremy Seifert, who recorded Trader Joe's employees trashing huge bins full of salvageable food in his film Dive! Seifert is a self-professed "Dumpster diver," and he feeds his family with the perfectly good food retailers routinely throw in the garbage.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyfinance.com ...
Trader Joe's donates abundantly and regularly to several local food banks. In fact, they are the leading donator and much appreciated by those in the know.
If this leftist weenie, Seifert, had a brain and actually cared about "wasted food," he would start a food bank to give the food away. But that would not make as good a "documentary" as slamming one of the most successful businesses of all time, Trader Joe's.
Activist = uppity assholes. Just shut up already.
What recession?
Liberal special interest groups are still FLUSH WITH CASH.
Now pay your taxes, said organizations need the money. :)
excellent point - what is his ultimate goal, "agitating" for liberals to weep so much that they pressure their Rat congressmen for government involvement, which would end up being more dictatorial seizures of our food system?
Bah.
On the other hand, for people who love "non-profit collectives" so much, this seems an ideal reason for one - as you said, how about a food bank that deals with a number of stores, gets all the health regs passed, and then re-routes the discarded-but-good food to the poor and homeless.
Oh, but yeah, you're right - that would actually solve the problem.
Or, in the words of Rahm Emmanuel - "waste" its "opportunity."
The legal liability issues from donating or otherwise recycling past-date food are severe -- and were created by the liberal meddlers in the first place.
Trader Joe's is caught in the crossfire between the "EEVIL corporations sell tainted/spoiled food" and the "EEEVIL corporations throw away perfectly good food". As usual, the liberals change their ground to suit their whim of the moment.
And it wouldn't bring him the $$$ these leftist pukes get from selling their wares to richer leftists for oh, should I say it.... PROFIT! No food banks are lucrative or contraversal - they merely function and perform a need - no money in that. Prime example, Michael Moore's documentaries - by the size of him, he has never even visited a food bank.
Donating anything which is outdated (even by a day or two) can bring on serious liability issues even if the food is perfectly safe. Dry goods may be safely edible for decades after the expiration date, with some loss of flavor. Canned goods may be fine for years and even frozen meats may be good for months.
There is a true story about the British Museum in the 1930's feeding a cat some tinned meat from the Napoleonic Wars 120 years or so earlier. The cat ate it and suffered no ill effects. Though I can't imagine the color or taste would be particularly pleasant.
” Trader Joe’s donates abundantly and regularly to several local food banks. In fact, they are the leading donator and much appreciated by those in the know. “
I started shopping at TJ’s in 1976. It was the second one to open. It was on Riverside Dr. in Sherman Oaks. I’ve been in love with them ever since ;-)
I subscribe to the Michael Savage "Bumpersticker" theory.
One bumpersticker makes you interested in a topic.
Two makes you an activist.
However, three or more.....and you're just a common, run-of-the-mill loon.
If this idiot feeds his family out of a dumpster, I can guess about what the back of his vehicle looks like.
I think in China they are now telling their children, “don’t waste your food, there are children starving in America.”
And their kids probably say the same thing we said: “How does me eating my food help a starving kid somewhere else?”
Anyway, if my post is rambling and off-topic, let me close with this:
“Activists” are a waste of oxygen.
Big grocers around here pad lock their dumpsters to keep people out of them. Otherwise they are liable to law suits if somebody gets sick from eating their garbage.
Here is why alot of restaurants toss food in the dumpster as one local KFC franchise owner revealed to me. Food banks accept the free food, then turn around and sell it for a profit. This KFC ceased donations once it was found out.
No more complicated or heartless or sinister than that.
But the trial lawyers would NEVER agree to granting them immunity from being sued for giving away free food.
We run into this every fall when we are involved with the Scouting for Food campaign. Individuals donate food and Boy Scouts pick up the bags and take the collected donations to a local food cupboard. With every passing year we seem to get a higher percentage of food past its sell-by date. The food cupboard doesn't accept it, so it goes to waste unless one of the Scouts takes it home. It's really sad to see it wasted, but none of the organizations can accept the liability.
I know from personal experience that Trader Jooe’s gives away large quantity of food to food banks.....
We’ve helped our local church pickup several shopping carts of food each week for delivery to the food bank.
I know from personal experience that Trader Jooe’s gives away large quantity of food to food banks.....
We’ve helped our local church pickup several shopping carts of food each week for delivery to the food bank.
Mine was, “So mail it to them.”
Then, when Thiopian Airlines became the Launch Customer for the Boeing Dreamliner, I wondered in horror, “What do they serve for inflight meals - my leftovers from the sixties?”
Yeah, mail it to them. Good idea.
But then, as others have said on this thread, they’d be liable for distribution of expired food.
Perfect post, AnAmericanMother. Every word is right on.
Two more points:
This discarding of close-to-the-date food reassures the TJ shopper that you are getting fresh merchandise when you shop there. In my experience, supermarkets are not as careful in discarding past-the-date items.
I thought of another reason for patronizing TJ’s: none of their products bear bilingual (English/Spanish) labelling, which I am boycotting.
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