I was scarfing down an apple at my desk when Russ T. Blade poked his head out from behind my monitor. “Rusty,” as regular readers know, is the imaginary, miniature produce manager who occasionally appears to talk shop.
Rusty: You gonna eat the core of that apple too?
Me: Slurp — I might. I don’t like to waste anything, you know.
Rusty: Food waste is an ongoing problem. I notice a story on the topic gets generated every so often in publications. It kinda bugs me, the percentages these so-called experts like to cite of upward of 40% waste.
Me: I wrote a piece in The Packer about a year or so ago, after I heard a speaker at a CAFÉ foodservice function in Charleston, S.C., talk at length about subject, citing about the same; she said 30% to 40% of food is wasted. I pulled her aside afterwards to clarify, and she stuck to her guns and said waste is indeed that high and occurs at every level: grower-shippers, wholesale, retail and foodservice.
Rusty: I’ve been managing fresh retail produce all my life. We track waste — er, we call it shrink — very closely. We’ve rarely had much over 6% shrink, although I’ve seen some instances of upwards of 10% on occasion. However, that’s a rarity.
Me: Exactly. Where do these waste experts get their data? As for all the talk about marketing “ugly” produce in retail, consumers still buy with their eyes and demand cosmetically perfect produce. I’ve seen that most misshapen or second-grade produce and lesser-grade fare finds a welcome home in foodservice or with processors. I know when I spoke to the CAFÉ speaker, I called her out and suggested that she is mistaken if she thinks food waste is upward of 40%. And yes, I said it that politely.
Rusty: Speaking from a retail point of view, shrink (food waste) can happen due to all sorts of reasons. Fresh produce loads arrive with damaged cartons, short-dated items or reefers arrive too hot or even frozen. We’re constantly on top of things and are careful not to break the cold chain. We break down loads immediately. We rotate the cooler and displays daily. I make sure my crew is trained to not over-trim, not overstock and handle the produce with care. Forty percent my eye.
Me: I pressed on this speaker a bit. I asked her (again, very politely) if she had ever worked on a receiving dock, if she had ever worked in a foodservice operation or if she ever spent time handling produce in retail. I asked, “Were you ever an inspector, a produce manager, a buyer, or a purchasing agent?” She sheepishly said no but said she did do research.
Rusty: Ha! There’s no better research than rolling up your sleeves and being personally accountable for a perishable inventory, day in and day out, year in and year out.
Me: That was my next assertion. I told her I have held those positions over decades and assured her that while food waste was an ever-present challenge, we never, ever saw waste in the ridiculous percentage range she cited. Retail? Perhaps 6% to 10%, max. Foodservice? As a QC inspector, we rarely pitched more than a half pallet of goods every other day, and oftentimes we were able to donate fresh items such as speckled overripe bananas or product that arrived mislabeled — low, single-digit waste percentage at most.
Rusty: Obviously the 30% to 40% percentage waste cited come from so-called experts who conjure up numbers for whatever reason and have never spent time repacking product, cleaning out warehouse pick slots and who have never worked late on quarter-end, Saturday night inventories.
Me: The best I can figure for where most waste occurs is in the home. I’m guilty of it myself, putting produce in the crisping drawer and forgetting about it. Then a week or so passes and I end up tossing out too much. I try not to, as groceries are my second-biggest expense like everyone, right behind the mortgage.
Rusty: Same here, but even that isn’t a whopping percentage. Overall, the produce industry is responsible, above and beyond expectations. Get sloppy, and we go out of business. We do waste too much food as a society, but to levy this claim against the entire produce industry and casually throw around big waste numbers, it’s just …
Me: It’s conjecture, to be polite.
Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.
