What a Waste!

[TheCountAlucard]

So, in accordance with its responsibility to alienate everyone, this week at the college is "Sexual Responsibility Week." Maybe it's because of that certain holiday, hmm? :smallamused: But let's not get into that, because some of the horror stories aren't in-line with the board's "keep it PG-13" rule.

Instead I want to talk about Monday's "event," which was actually pretty innocuous compared to some of their other stuff; namely, they had a lasagna dinner in the campus center while they showed Forrest Gump (strange choice, considering the week's "theme" :smallconfused:). They made it clear that only the first fifty people to appear to the dinner would receive any lasagna.

Twelve people showed up, in total. Thus, after about forty-five minutes of us eating and waiting for the movie to start, the caterers ended up throwing away about twenty pounds of pasta, and that's not counting the breadsticks, cookies, and salad. :smallsigh:

I was ultimately very disappointed with this; I hate to see food go to waste, especially when the people are literally giving it away, so I ended up pleading with them to let me snag another plate's worth of lasagna to take home with me. :smallfrown:

What about you, Playground? Ever had stuff like this happen?

[eidreff]

I help manage a voluntary group that oversees a 79 acre woodland... we organised a fair for our 10th anniversary that was rather unnattended... the only bonus of sleeping in a cold marquee and getting bitten to heck by mosquitos was that there was lots of hog roast left to take home :S

[SurlySeraph]

A lot of colleges in cities have soup kitchens or homeless shelters nearby; that would have been a good idea. Or they could figure a way to reuse the food, like cafeterias in general tend to do.

While I don't know your college's particular culture, I am curious why they expected over fifty people to show up for food and watching Forrest Gump on Valentine's Day Evening. More social-mingling activities than movie-watching would make sense, but group dinner and a movie is an odd event for V-day.

[TheCountAlucard]

While I don't know your college's particular culture, I am curious why they expected over fifty people to show up for food and watching Forrest Gump on Valentine's Day Evening. More social-mingling activities than movie-watching would make sense, but group dinner and a movie is an odd event for V-day.Much of this flashed through my mind when I first heard it, as well. :smallconfused: They still have yet to elaborate. :smallamused:

[Orzel]

Wasted... lasagna?

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!:frown:

After a gathering that went south due to weather, My friend and I handed out sandwiches and pizza to everyone we saw. Policemen. Crazy "End is Near" guys. Gangsters. Dogs (we made the food dog safe), Squirrels (more like it stole some cheese).

[Felixaar]

You mean there was lasagna, breadsticks, and cookies that no one else wanted, and no one stepped up to the plate? I'm shocked at the lot of you!

Salad, though. Pfft.

[Force]

Depending on the country, unfortunately, caterers must by law throw away food after serving it. :smallfrown: Still, that's a shame.

[TheCountAlucard]

Still, that's a shame.It took a solid minute of my asking before they allowed me to take any with me. :smallfrown:

[Mystic Muse]

You mean there was lasagna, breadsticks, and cookies that no one else wanted, and no one stepped up to the plate? I'm shocked at the lot of you!

Salad, though. Pfft.

I completely agree with everything you say here.

I always feel terrible upon throwing something out like that.

[Private-Prinny]

It took a solid minute of my asking before they allowed me to take any with me. :smallfrown:

Wait, seriously? :smallconfused:

They were throwing out enough lasagna to feed 38 people, but they thought it was a better alternative to giving more to a person who wanted it? I also agree with the people who were asking why they didn't try donating any of to a soup kitchen, or shelter, or something of the sort.

[factotum]

I was invited to a small Dell meeting which was going to involve discussion of storage requirements, followed by a steak dinner. Turns out it was a bit smaller than anticipated, since I was the only one who turned up!

[Trog]

Wait, seriously? :smallconfused:

They were throwing out enough lasagna to feed 38 people, but they thought it was a better alternative to giving more to a person who wanted it? I also agree with the people who were asking why they didn't try donating any of to a soup kitchen, or shelter, or something of the sort.
Odd indeed. Unless they wanted to keep all the food themselves and divvy it up. Lasagna makes people do strange things... and cats. Cats do strange things too for it. >>

Also you have my new favorite avatar, sir. There's something Vaguely WindWaker-esque about it, even. :smallsmile:

[Serpentine]

The people who work in the deli at Woolworths aren't allowed to take home any unsold meat. Even fish, that is just going to get thrown out anyway. They will even, so I'm told, get fired if they're caught taking some (presumably well-wrapped and only recently discarded) from the bin itself.
Such waste :smallannoyed: Starving children, etc.

[grimbold]

as a teenage male i just go
YAY MOAR FOOD!!!

[Trog]

The people who work in the deli at Woolworths aren't allowed to take home any unsold meat. Even fish, that is just going to get thrown out anyway. They will even, so I'm told, get fired if they're caught taking some (presumably well-wrapped and only recently discarded) from the bin itself.
Such waste :smallannoyed: Starving children, etc.
Well to a certain extent I understand this policy. If an employee "accidentally" makes too much of something and then offers to take it home you can easily see where you might run into problem. They don't want to have practices in place that encourage errors that allow the employee to make himself free food. Setting yourself up to get swindled by your employees there.

Really if a homeless shelter or what have you wants to pick up any leftovers and distribute them it would save the company money in garbage disposal while benefiting those in need. But I don't know if a lot of shelters or other organizations make an effort to do this. Most employers wouldn't pay for an employee to drive the food to a shelter to get rid of it when they can just tell them to toss it instead. It's all about the company remaining profitable.

However if a shelter approached a company and said company turned them down only to dispose of the food instead you have to question their morality at that point. But there still could be reasons why this happens. They may not trust the person representing the shelter. The owner may take it home himself. Or any other number of reasons I'd imagine. Hard to say.

[Pepz]

I work at a catering focused temp agency, which means that I've by now seen most of the restaurants and caterers in a 25 mile radius. I don't earn a lot myself (because I'm also a full-time student) so I'm always shocked at seeing the amount of food that is thrown away after parties and especially after barbeques....

On the one hand, as has been said there are laws against serving food (even to your own employees) after it has been on the table for a certain amount of time. Very understandeable, especially if you see how food looks after four hours on a table (party was long over, we'd forgotten to take it off the table ><). On the other hand, especially since I'm a big eater myself, I always try to grab a bite of what will otherwise be thrown into the dumpster anyways. I can usually eat about two plates (sometimes 3 or 4) of food before I either need to get to work again or am stuffed. It kinda makes me feel good, at least a little bit more got eaten :P

As for giving at away to charities, if the food is still edible and can be transported, why not? But it can go wrong... I heard the story of a really great caterer who tried to give everything to a homeless shelter. They brought in simple stuff most of the time (soups, salads, pasta) but at times they'd bring in salmon, steak and really great quiches. Until one day they came in with something simple. The person working there opened the pots, looking inside and asked why they hadn't brought any steak or salmon because this stuff was too plain. They stopped bringing in the food after that :smallfrown:

[Xefas]

I'm currently attending a culinary school that runs a brunch service on Sundays operated by the students, and I see a lot of food get chucked, which makes me rather sad. The general rule is that you're allowed to take anything home that you want, but you have to get to it before its thrown out, and slacking on the cleanup duty afterward is severely frowned upon. So, often, by the time I'm done scrubbing grease traps or whatever, they've thrown away mountains of fresh pastries and things.

A few Sundays ago, I made up an excuse and milled about so that I could get my hands on some of the leftovers. I came away with bags and bags of breads, muffins, chocolate mousse, whole deliciously cooked chickens, etc. I essentially got an entire week of free meals from it, including snacking on muffins and stuff the whole time.

I'm trying to figure out a way to do that more often.

[Lemonus]

As for giving at away to charities, if the food is still edible and can be transported, why not? But it can go wrong... I heard the story of a really great caterer who tried to give everything to a homeless shelter. They brought in simple stuff most of the time (soups, salads, pasta) but at times they'd bring in salmon, steak and really great quiches. Until one day they came in with something simple. The person working there opened the pots, looking inside and asked why they hadn't brought any steak or salmon because this stuff was too plain. They stopped bringing in the food after that :smallfrown:

I... I cant believe that. :frown: IT'S FOOD! I'M SURE THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WOULDN'T CARE IF IT'S PLAIN! :furious: :furious: :furious:
Sorry about the all caps, I'm just really angry about that.

[Mando Knight]

Wait, seriously? :smallconfused:

They were throwing out enough lasagna to feed 38 people, but they thought it was a better alternative to giving more to a person who wanted it? I also agree with the people who were asking why they didn't try donating any of to a soup kitchen, or shelter, or something of the sort.
It's one of those things where the policy is incredulous due to the company wanting to set a definite line so they don't have theft or get in trouble with the Health department. More food has been wasted in the pursuit of quick meals and bureaucracy than basically anything else.

[Serpentine]

Well to a certain extent I understand this policy. If an employee "accidentally" makes too much of something and then offers to take it home you can easily see where you might run into problem. They don't want to have practices in place that encourage errors that allow the employee to make himself free food. Setting yourself up to get swindled by your employees there.Well, the context in which I found this out was the day before a long weekend. They were extra-spruiking the on-sale fish and seafood, because if it wasn't sold before they closed it would all get thrown out. Despite being perfectly good food...

Once at uni we disected some trout the professors went and caught the day before. Disecting a fish basically involves gutting it really, really slowly. We were told that anyone who wanted to could take some fish home to eat - in fact, they encouraged it. But everyone was all "ew, we disected that! :smallyuk:" So I think I was the only one who took any. And that big, fat trout was absolutely delicious (and very well gutted) P:
I think the lecturers took the rest home, by the way. Some of it might've been wasted, but I don't think it was too much - more than if my fellow students hadn't been ludicrously squeamish :smallannoyed:

[RndmNumGen]

It's rather sad how much food gets wasted just for the sake of convenience when there are so many other uses for it.

[Foeofthelance]

Hmmm, when I worked at a restaurant the general rule was that food prepared "on site" had to be disposed of on site, due to lack of proper sealing containers and various other health code instituted rules. Though there were also usually some aluminum containers and plastic shells for people to take left overs home if they wanted. Why that was allowed, I don't know, but it normally resulted in some free cake and (very rarely) steak.

Some of it might also be the regulations of the food pantry in question. I know when I was collecting during Scouting for Food runs that only canned and boxed goods could be taken. Anything cooked or unsealed had to be tossed, since the food pantry in question both didn't have the resources to store it properly, and also didn't have any way to date it for spoilage and contamination due to allergens.

[Eloel]

I worked at a cafe, and owned a dog. Yay free food for him :smallsmile:

It's funny how much burgers & stuff normally go to waste every day. (Not only stuff you prepared but never got to cook/sell, but leftovers too)

[Cespenar]

Among many otherwise awful things that people do, things like this really force the top 10 reasons of me losing hope in humanity, because even though they seem mild in contrast to other stuff we see everyday on news, they are consistent, and so common that it's almost a part of our culture.

[Mercenary Pen]

In my place of work the issue is that we have to have special procedures for disposing of raw meat, eggs and dairy products (and it would be raw fish as well if we stocked it), and so the company requires that the disposal run records actually tally with what has been written off in the store- just to keep any chance of a health and safety action right down to the utterly negligible point it should be at.

But then again, I work in a convenience store, rather than a restaurant, meaning the situation was somewhat different to begin with.