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Comment by delichon | Hacker News Reader

I wonder, do sell-by dates harm the bottom line of groceries due to more unsold perishable goods, or does that cost get passed back to the vendors? Either way this rule would seem to be advantageous to either the retailer or the wholesaler. Perhaps that helped to get it passed.

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When I worked in a grocerie store.

The bread guy took back the unsold breads and we were only charged for the sold ones and credited the unsold.

This was in Montréal 20 years ago.

Not sure how it is today and I have no idea in California.

But since it passed I'm guessing it was thr same and now this would be an obvious advantage for the sellers since this would assuré they sell everything.

I worked in a grocery coop and it depended on the vendor. For some, they controlled how much stock we carried and would take back anything that didn’t sell. For things that we ordered directly and chose how much to carry, we were responsible for expired food costs.

This is something I have idly wondered. Where does the expired food go? Both “literally rotting” and “canned good safe for a decade, but we toss it after 12 months”.

Landfill? Animal feed? Some amount of charity for the salvageable items? A typical grocery store could produce an incredible amount of daily waste.

It isnt uncommon for pig farmers to buy bulked spoiled or old food. I don't know how much that represents overall though.

When I volunteered at a soup kitchen in Newfoundland, we got in just/nearly expired food fairly regularly. Some got used, some (fresh stuff) got frozen, some got tossed.

Definitely a large amount of it went to perfectly fine meals. The cook was very skilled at making good meals with an odd selection of ingredients.

We were college students; we ate it ourselves. We also had access to a commercial kitchen, and anything getting close to going bad we’d make into prepared food, which always sold really fast. We couldn’t do that with our milk vendor though, because they would only give us credit for unsold AND unconsumed milk. We had to let the milk go bad, which was a huge waste.

I also used to dumpster dive, and yes, grocery stores throw out a LOT of food. Some places would have bins for pig farmers to collect, most just threw it in the trash. I’ve been held at gunpoint twice for dumpstering. We had an ongoing battle with a manager for a Trader Joe’s, who ended up pouring bleach all over the dumpster every night. It’s wild what people will do in order to keep people from getting something they don’t “deserve,” even when it’s literal trash.

kaikai says "It’s wild what people will do in order to keep people from getting something they don’t “deserve,” even when it’s literal trash."

But you haven't "stood in the other man's shoes" and seen it from his/her perspective.

Businesses are strictly regulated. They are required by law to dispose of certain old/damaged/discarded foodstuff and are not allowed to sell it for human consumption. Likely a second company (and possibly a third, since storage and hauling may be done separately) was hired to store the food in a container and to haul the food away as trash. The company signed a contract stating so.

Now you

1. entered his property (trespassed),

2. entered a dumpster (a second trespass possibly of a second business),

3. removed goods (theft), and then

4. passed/sold them to others (violating untold food laws)

and then are surprised someone tries to stop you!

Worst of all, consider if, while dumpster diving, you hurt yourself or even died? The food business would be sued and his insurance company would likely pay. You would have nothing to say about the decision to sue: your insurers and/or medical providers would pursue litigation against the food vendor even were you to oppose their actions.

As you can see, in this interpretation there is no particular question of what one or another person "deserves". Rather it is a question of law, property rights and civic responsibility.

I have seen it from their perspective, I’m not an idiot. I’m fully capable of seeing and understanding another persons perspective, and disagreeing with it. I reject the idea that allowing people to go hungry when there is a EXCESS of food available is a morally correct choice.

Laws are rules created by people and we have the ability to change them. At the very least, we have the ability and moral responsibility to ignore them when they are unethical.

Also, I have never sold dumpstered food or given it to anyone who didn’t know it was dumpstered. I HAVE gotten injured dumpstering, and didn’t sue anyone for it. I DID get sick once from dumpstered food, and didn’t sue anyone for it (I’ve also gotten sick from eating at restaurants, and didn’t sue them, either).

For me, basic human rights and care for each other will always trump laws and property rights. And yes, I’ve done jail time for it and would do it again. I know that we won’t agree, and don’t need to change your mind. I do hope that you can understand the difference between knowing and understanding the rules, and blindly following the rules.

kaikai says>"I do hope that you can understand the difference between knowing and understanding the rules, and blindly following the rules."<

You could have done either: known and understood the rules or blindly followed the rules. Either was acceptable but you did neither: you instead broke the rules. Your post is a sociopathic justification of criminal action.

Why are there so many people unemployed and unemployable who seem to seek a repeat of the French Revolution in all of it's blood-dripping anarchy? The music of Les Miserables (the musical) was good, but not that good!

Well, at least you understand the rules and are willing to accept the consequences.

The reason they are enforced is because of game theory. There are plenty of things that are not a big deal if only one or two people do it. However, if large numbers of people do it then the system breaks down for everyone.

One hopes for some individual discretion at the margins, and the TJ's manager probably went overboard. However the morality is not so obvious when one has to consider higher order effects. (Though I also realize you would like the entire system to function differently anyway, which is a fair point as well).

A lot of grocery stores donate it to soup kitchens thanks to the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996. My local SoCal Trader Joes donated over $700k worth of food last year.

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