Mildly Infuriating

Seldom have I seen a better example of why universal basic income is so preferable to food banks.

There isn't a food shortage. There are significant problems of wastage created by marketing value and poor distribution. Many solutions have been brought up over the years. To deaf ears. Because your local grocer needs to put 1000 tomatoes out to mostly rot because it looks aesthetically pleasing.

They do this because they can write off the "donation" (e.g. garbage disposal)

All of this produce was going to go bad, they know what date it's going bad, but they overproduce or customers cancelled orders or under ordered.

UNFI, the massive breached company, is going to have this same thing play out across the board from product wasting away in their warehouse.

Also: Where is this? It’s a small world, some Lemming might pick up a cauliflower or two.

Do you have a Sikh temple nearby? They cook for the community.

I'm one of the returns clerks in a Costco. First thing we do every morning is process stuff to send the food bank. It irks me how much stuff we aren't allowed to send because the manufacturer won't allow it. Even despite that we send a lot every day. Everything that does spoil at the food bank goes to a local pig farm, who donates pig products back to the food bank whenever he can.

Silly idle thought (for real): Suppose in a situation like this, particularly if people complain on the internet drawing attention to the fact that there's 1000s of pounds of produce in a space that likely doesn't have funding for strong security measures, a group of interested parties brought some trucks and took it without explicit permission or consent from the organization.

What's the impact to the org in situations where this isn't given away to unauthorized parties, but gets stolen instead?

pickle pickle pickle!

2% salted water brine, spices, glass weights to maintain under water in not-too-tight closed jars with co2 escape. keep at room temperature, and here you go!

It's not the bureaucracy. It's the capitalist that run the bureaucracy. In a society like this, it's all about managing perception. It's all about your brand. It's about looking good and not doing good. As things start to centralize further and further, you'll see what this is all about. In my town we have hooverviles. The homeless are there to remind you to work harder, or you'll become homeless. Working inside the system will not work. Capitalism in the US Empire need overthrown.

American Charity*

*Terms and conditions apply

I would set up a food collection spot just a few feet outside and ask people if they are kind enough to consider taking a case or two to donate there. This way I can redistributed the way I want with that second charity.

Thank you for your service ʘ‿ʘ

We are not allowed to simply give it out to anyone. This is not like a church pantry where all of the food is donated by the community and’s parishioners. There is government funding, as well as private businesses, which I am guessing get their money back from the government for funding this. If we could simply give it to anyone we would not be in this situation.

Yep. That's really dumb. When people talk about government inefficiency, this is what they mean.

Is there any chance you have enough (wo)manpower to prepare and preserve it? Even watermelon can be pickled, dehydrated or made into a jam.

I have a large ice chest and a heavily restricted diet due to medical issues and my food banks won't give me fresh produce unless I show proof of residency (they want you to have a refrigerator). The little daily snack pack with oreos and soda they give you otherwise isn't worth the trip.

At the food bank where my mother works, she finds pig farmers are a good source to get rid of almost gone food. While it's not solving the feeding people part, it does help with disposal. Good luck, hopefully you can pickle some of it too.

You're doing your part, but someone else isn't. Everyone should learn as part of their upbringing that wasting food is bad - just like littering and thousands of other things. Unfortunately we live in a world where someone has to be fined for them to realise they're doing something wrong.

I am working at an Amazon company's warehouse that specifically stores food items.

The amount of shit we throw in trash just because "packaging is slightly off" makes me angry and just one day of bad management spoils enough food to feed entire family.

There is no air conditioning or fridge. It's summer in Texas so if we delay a single day, half the items go bad. There are dairy products here. (And people in border of heatstroke but that's another topic.)

If I were in that situation, I would try quickly whipping up some homemade posters and put them at our market square, maybe in front of schools, and in front of grocery stores. I would make sure to specify why these are given away, otherwise people might be suspicious.

That would probably illegal, but …well… who’s going to sue a food bank over hanging a few posters for 2 days?

I wonder if your food bank can set up some kind of relationship with farms in your region. Those farms may be open to taking lots of spoiled produce as animal feed and compost material. In exchange they might share their crops with you.

Tomatoes, dont need any cooling, storing them in the fridge does prolongs their live but they taste like shit afterwards.

Greetings from a German Italian who cries often when people put tomatoes in fridges.

I have been volunteering feeding homeless for a number of years and I was never happier than when I was tasked with throwing away compromised food. The sadism of it mixed with the altruism, sweet Jesus.

Not being funny, but what the fuck is a homeless person going to do with a raw cauliflower?

I often see carrier bags of dry pasta, tinned tomatoes and stuff just dumped at the roadside, because the person they'd given it to has no way of doing anything with it. Apparently they're supposed to give only food they can prepare, but that clearly doesn't always happen.

Food waste is part of the system. It's fine. It's what stops a shortage from becoming a famine.

I take it the most pressing issue right now is cooling. If that is right, you might have yet another avenue to explore: Ask facilities with cooling needs if you can store one or two pallets there. I’m thinking schools, (yet again) restaurants, ice cream parlors, ice skating rinks (not sure how they work exactly – is the whole building cooled or just the rink itself?), butchers. You could ask an outdoor gear shop (I mean a place where skis and winter jackets etc. are sold) if they know of a place where one can test jackets. They might know a cool place, too.