I have a good friend who is a foodie. I actually have several friends who are foodies. In the one case, she always asks where each element of the dinner I serve comes from. It is usually 80% from Safeway, 10% Trader Joe's and 5% Costco. I’m declasse and proud of it.
Safeway does many things that I consider brilliant, but one thing ranks as genius. (Safeway is owned by Cerberus, that also owns Vons and Albertsons.)
I remember the hippie days when the dump-bins around Safeway were the place to go for food. Enormous amounts of food had to be thrown out everyday.
I remember the evolution of food banks in the late hippie era when much of the same food was donated to the food banks instead of being thrown out.
We have now entered a new era, for which Safeway deserves a genius award. Safeway sells the food that used to be thrown out or given away back to us.
The first place I noticed this is the chicken chunks. This is really the shredding of the roasted chickens that didn’t sell the day before. It is delicious. Stores that don’t sell all their roast chicken have plenty of shredded chicken the next day. The same is true for fried chicken nuggets and turkey.
Then I noticed that there are many containers of fresh sliced fruit. Usually perfectly ripe for immediate use. This is all the fruit that was close to being thrown out. It has been carefully sliced to get the ripe parts out and put into fresh fruit containers.
Finally there are all the containers of mixed veggies that are in small chunks, often packaged with cheese or a dip. Again, veggies that were ready to be thrown out, sold for perfectly ready luncheon snacks.
To me this ranks as a way to use food without throwing it away. Selling it to us in a desirable form. Simple living genius.