Empty Shelves in Supermarkets – A Good Thing?

I have a question for you…

Have you ever found yourself in the state of lazy in which you simply try to shove everything down as far as possible, rather than to pull the overstuffed trash bag from the can? Sounds like a great solution to a recurring problem, until you physically do the deed and are smacked with that pungent smell of your previous meals in various states of decomposition. Smells are temporary, so it might not bother you…but the next day when you shove another meal into the bag the smell has gotten slightly worse. Only then do you decide that it’s time, and you pull the bag out…but instead of a nice easy bag of trash you are met with your worst nightmare. For, the shoving of the previous day has proven itself a mistake as the rancid medley of chicken juices and rotten tomatoes drips from the ripped bag, leaving your pants stained and smelly…

It happens all the time, everywhere in the world. People are continuously wasting the food items that they have purchased; some are lost to kitchen mishaps and others are lost to uneaten leftovers. Some food purchased by consumers doesn’t make it further than the fridge before it is forgotten about and “murdered in cold blood”, as I like to put it. This is especially prevalent in the produce and seafood sectors of the food chain. The most recent study on food waste (2011), found that when comparing Food Consumed to Food Lost in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand collectively, that 48% of fruits and vegetables were consumed and 52% were lost somewhere along the way (i.e. wasted). For seafood, the ratio was half and half, showing that 50% of all seafood was consumed and 50% was wasted. (See below for Grain, Meat, and Milk).

Yes…these numbers are shocking; but what truly dumbfounds me is why this issue has not been addressed. This study was conducted in 2011, so I’m confident that as a result of process improvements and consumer awareness growth, these waste numbers would be slightly lower if a study was done right now…it’s been 9 years. If something hasn’t changed then I don’t know if it ever will…but besides for the lack in current waste statistics, you’ll never believe the simple oversight that has led to one of the biggest sources of household and retail waste…

THE LABEL.

The popular misconception is that a product has gone to shit as soon as it hits the “Sell By” or “Best Buy” date, when in actuality this label is for the grocery chain’s reference to when the specific item has reached it’s peak freshness. If an item is right at or just before the date listed, the chances are that the item still has a couple weeks of life left in it. If you freeze it, that life increases even more…obviously. Yogurt is the best example of this because consumers will look at the date and if the “Sell Buy” date has arrived, they won’t touch it. “NASTY!”, they will say as they vehemently slam it into the trash without opening it to check first.

Which…if they did so, they would find that their Chobani flip still smells like the Greek Yogurt they are used to, and their cookie crumble is still intact in its pocket.

There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between the phrases used on product labels that are intended as freshness indicators (“Sell By” or “Best Buy”) and the BIG, RED “Expiry Date” labels. Expiration dates are exactly what you think they are in that the product is not of consumable quality after the labeled date, but the prior is still as tasty as the day it was packaged. This misunderstanding causes supply chain disruptions and billions of pounds of waste on multiple levels:

1. Household Waste

2. Grocery Chain Waste

3. Last In First Out (LIFO) Consumer Purchasing

Waste

Every year, billions of pounds of discarded food is crunched and smashed, dragged and dripped all the way from the trash can in your kitchen, to the nearby landfills hidden in plain sight. The evidence is undeniable; the overwhelming majority of food waste in the United States comes from: One. Obvious. Source…

And that source is…

…drumroll please…

…Sound of a drumroll off in the distance…

SHITTY COOKS!

And that makes total sense, right? If the food you’re cooking TASTES like garbage, then it is more likely to BECOME garbage in the very near future. Food, of course, is an essential ingredient to life and a human being cannot survive without it. Therefore, the people that can’t cook, are forced to eat the thing they’ve produced, and will probably just order takeout next time. Oh…and those leftovers? Hell no! Straight to the trash they along with the remainder of their creation still left on their plate!

The same study that I referenced previously, estimates that 40% of all food that is produced in the United States whether it be a raw ingredient in a processing plant or a finished meal at a restaurant, goes uneaten…wasted… That’s A LOT of food…so much food in fact that if food losses were reduced by 15%, enough food would be recovered to feed 25 million more Americans every year than it does currently.

But enough about consumer waste because I can’t go around teaching people how to create better-tasting food or show them proper storage methods for perishables and leftovers. That would take WAY too much time! And some consumers are willingly ignorant.

This mystical, magical 15%, a percentage that would add SO MUCH FOOD to our bottom line, can be found not with the consumer, but with farming, production, and retail. Here’s how each of those sectors are contributing to waste:

1. Farming – Believe it or not, consumers are less likely to purchase “ugly” fruit, even though it is perfectly edible. I, for one, buy the ass-shaped tomatoes and the fruit of bizarre proportions because they are unique and I support their individualistic lifestyle, however oftentimes this produce is left to rot. A large tomato packager estimated that during peak season, they fill one dump truck with 22,000 pounds of discarded tomatoes every 40 minutes. Other farms predict that between 20% and 50% of their produce is unmarketable due to its characteristics, although still edible as could be.

2. Production Losses – Production losses consist of a variety of different types of waste; and this waste can be something as simple as a machine that cuts too much of a vegetable off when it trims it. In the case of Heinz, they found that by filling ketchup bottles straight from the machine, as opposed to squeezing it from an intermediary plastic storage bag, they were able to use the previously wasted ketchup that remained on the inside of every bag.

3. Retail – Dumpsters and Garbage Trucks are continuously being filled with wasted product, either due to the “Expiry Date”, damage, or a lack of sales. A Grocery Supply Chain Consultant predicts that 1 in 7 perishable truckloads delivered into a grocery chain will leave that same store in a dumpster.

For the following sections I will be focusing on Grocery Chains to give you a more in-depth picture of the customers role in this waste, how it can be eliminated, and the positive effects resulting from COVID-19.

Customer Expectations

Picky, picky, picky…WE ALL ARE. I require my Claussen Pickles, my Heinz Ketchup, and my Barilla pasta just as you require your favorite brand for certain products…Maybe a specific processor of chicken or a flavor of chip. But regardless the product you have this preference for, when you shop at a grocery store such as a Giant Eagle or a Kroger, you automatically go in with expectations. You want what you want and will be severely disappointed if the product is out of stock or doesn’t reach the appearance standards you so require.

Grocery stores tend to abide by the principal of “Stack ‘em High, Watch ‘em Fly”; roughly interpreted as the higher the mound of apples, the more you will sell to the consumer. Stop’n’Shop has proven the contrary; they conducted an analysis of freshness, inventory space, and customer demand of each of their perishable SKUs. Reducing the amount of product on display and removing SKUs deemed as unnecessary resulted in an overall increase in customer satisfaction.

“An increase?! But isn’t there less selection?”, you wonder.

From a numbers perspective, yes…But customers didn’t notice a reduced level of choice and in fact they found the produce to be fresher at time of purchase. The massive piles of fruits and veggies treat the items on top very well, but the bottom of the pyramid gets crushed from the weight of their crop-mates.

Covid-19 Disruption

In my first post (if you haven’t read it), I talked about empty shelves where toilet paper would normally sit and shortages of other ‘Household Staples’. The overarching reason for shortages is lack of trucking, but increased order quantities plays a major part in this as shoppers try to avoid making multiple trips into the abyss for groceries. Shortages of well-known brands lead people to resort to buying a different brand of the item in question. In the case of meats, if the chicken rack is empty, a customer is more likely to buy steak or another type of meat as a substitute. Or say there IS some chicken, but the “Sell Buy” date is a week out; many people pre-pandemic would say, “I’ll just come back tomorrow!”, but now the people craving chicken are realizing that, “Hey, I can freeze this and it will stay as fresh as new!”.

As a result, that chicken that would have just been tossed in the dumpster out back, has been bought by the consumer and will likely be eaten, assuming the seasoning goes as planned. Naturally, this decrease in waste from grocery chains will transition into waste from consumers; but getting the food in the hands of the end consumer is the sole purpose of these supply chains to begin with. And I would much rather see someone toss their leftovers as opposed to the grocery chain throwing out perfectly edible raw ingredients.

I want to hit on the labeling discrepancies again too, because I was shocked to learn that roughly $2,300 of out-of-date product gets thrown out per store, per day. Many stores pull the items a few days before the sell-by date; and again I emphasize that “Sell-By” is much different than an “Expiration Date”…one describes peak freshness and the other is a guideline set by the FDA for food safety. The COVID-19 Pandemic is changing the way consumers look at these dates and making them more willing to buy closer to the date. Less “Out-of-date” product on the shelves means less in the landfills.

Effective Waste Reduction Strategies

LEAN principles, which focus wholly on the reduction of waste, typically do not come to mind when thinking about the supply chain of a grocery store…and I think I’ve shown you that. But this virus and the corresponding changes in consumer behavior have forced these companies to rethink how they operate. They normally want to appease ALL of their customers by having EVERYTHING they want, and the biggest focus is the reduction of stockouts.

But now that stockouts are inevitable, and LEAN principles are forcing their way into the minds of Giant Eagle Executives, I truly hope that they begin to re-evaluate. The pandemic will eventually cease, and restaurants will come back in full force, taking some of the demand caused by the need to cook at home. Grocery chains need to take this opportunity to rebuild and prepare for lowered demand, while also maintaining their newly lowered levels of perishable waste.

Here’s some ways that they can do that:

1. Clear and Concise Labeling – I’ve gone over this a few times, so you get the point, but this really needs to be fixed. Walmart has regulated their labels, using “Best if Used By” for non-perishables and “Use By” for items that can spoil and more companies need to fall in line.

2. Discount Produce Section – A grocery store in California piloted this idea, selling damaged or nearly expired produce for $.99 each; they reported daily sales of $1,500 from this, proving that it works. So why don’t more stores do this?

3. Reduce Display Levels – Stop’n’Shop’s study showed that reducing the levels of produce on display, with higher employee attention works to reduce waste and increases the overall freshness of their product.

4. A Simple Label – A grocer in the U.K. came up with the solution to add a label instructing the consumer to freeze food up to the Use-By date and it is estimated that it will save 800,000 Metric Tons of food annually...humans are wired to follow instructions, so it’s funny to think that this can drastically affect waste levels.

5. Better Forecasting – I’m sure I will talk about forecasting in the future, but if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that the accuracy of the forecast depends on the person who made it. And for a grocery chain with many SKUs and forecasters, the margin of error is pretty high. My suggestion is to just review those and make better ones. I volunteer as tribute!

I promise I’ll wrap it up, there’s just one more statistic I want to throw at you…

When Food Waste is monetized to an annual loss per household (family of 4), food thrown away from spoilage and uneaten leftovers averages between $1,365 and $2,275 per household. And to this problem, I GRANT YOU THE SOLUTION!!!

Learn how to cook.

Thanks for reading! Keep an eye out later this week for some of my favorite recipes to help you with the above issue. And don’t forget to share and subscribe!

Nathaniel Schilpp