A Walmart employee's report of food waste in the big-box giant sparked frustration online.
In the Reddit post, the employee posted a photo of several stacks of strawberry pallets, all of which were being disposed of for containing mold. "Yesterday I [tossed] out 92 cartons of strawberries for being moldy," they wrote. "92! Unbelievable."
Fellow retail employees in the forum had encountered similar situations. "Yeah the food waste in produce is f****** insane. I'm disgusted by how many hundreds of pounds of stuff we throw away daily," one Reddit user commented.
"We had the freezer section stop freezing overnight," another user wrote. "Had to empty the whole section out, had to count and dump it all."
Unfortunately, this kind of waste is common in retail giants like Walmart, Target, Albertsons, and Kroger — large chains that purchase food in such enormous quantities that it often ends up going to the dumpster in equally enormous quantities.
"I won't buy produce from Walmart ever since I started working here," another commenter wrote. "I see what goes on."
But there are solutions — at least in some cases.
The approach that many stores and food banks have embraced is to donate the food whenever possible. Obviously, this means the food must be fit for human consumption — i.e. not moldy — but if a response can be organized quickly, donation can be an extremely effective way of preventing massive food waste.
For example, one Arkansas food bank was able to save over 60,000 meals after the power went out at their local Kroger during a storm, which enabled them to distribute food to thousands of families in their community.
Similarly, Trader Joe's has been known to give away frozen food to lucky shoppers in the event that their freezers go down. And if the food is unable to be donated, it can at least be composted — which some grocers, including certain Walmart locations, do.
But for shoppers who would still rather shop local, there are plenty of farmers who are working hard toward a future without excessive food waste.
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