One Redditor recently shared photos that allegedly depict just how much food their local Krispy Kreme wastes every day.
Food waste in stores and restaurants is an ongoing issue. Many throw out perfectly good food that could be donated or composted. A few, like Starbucks, even have policies that destroy some food before anyone has a chance to buy it.
According to the Redditor, who claimed to have worked at Krispy Kreme, the donut chain is one of those wasteful businesses. The user shared a photo of five trash bags full of hundreds of glazed donuts. "Average [shift's] worth of food waste at Krispy Kreme," they said in the title. "Every. Day."
One commenter, who claims to have been a supervisor at Krispy Kreme, confirmed the original poster's story.
"Most of the [glazed] donut waste is when the hot light is on and the staff either isn't putting them on trays, or they have enough for the overnight shift," they said. "Believe it or not, the end of the conveyor belt is a big ol' trash can for them to fall into."
Food waste is seriously problematic for people and our planet for quite a few reasons.
Producing food requires significant amounts of resources such as water, energy, and land. When food is wasted, all the resources that go into growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, and transporting that food are essentially wasted, as well.
When food waste ends up in landfills, it decomposes and releases methane, a potent gas that is a major contributor to the overheating of our planet. Food waste is estimated to be responsible for around 6-8% of planet-warming gas pollution each year.
By taking steps to reduce food waste, we can not only mitigate the negative impacts of climate change – such as extreme weather events that are basically "on steroids" – we can also hope to improve food insecurity in the U.S.
Feeding America estimates that, each year, 119 billion pounds of perfectly good food is thrown away, equating to about 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion wasted. Meanwhile, 34 million people face hunger in the United States.
Organizations like Feeding America successfully rescued a whopping 3.6 billion pounds of groceries last year to make meals for people facing hunger, a win for people and our planet.
While many businesses still treat food waste as part of the process, others take steps to be more responsible.
For instance, Detroit restaurant PizzaPlex designs its menu so it can throw out as little food as possible. It takes note of which menu items sell well so it can buy just the right amount of ingredients, and it performs frequent audits to discover what's being thrown away to reduce waste even further.
This helps the restaurant save money, and it's also eco-friendly since it minimizes the energy being spent to prepare and ship food that will just be thrown away.
Businesses can also list food that's about to expire on apps like Too Good To Go and Flashfood. Customers get a discount, and companies get to sell food that would otherwise have to be written off, making this a win for everyone.
The former Krispy Kreme supervisor who commented on the original Reddit recommended a sneaky tactic to address food waste. "I organized a church coming to pick up donuts for people in need. Maybe try suggesting that to your manager. Better than throwing away so many every night."
Another commenter agreed. "What a shame, these should be donated to local shelters."
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