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there seem to me two levels of maybe interesting stuff in this--the first has to do with the micro-level dynamics at the whole foods union square store. on that we clearly do not have the full story. on the surface of it, the situation is absurd and makes whole foods look like assholes. which in some ways, they are---but i am not sure that this is an indication of any of those ways.
the other matter is what supermarkets do with food like tuna sandwiches made that morning, and why it makes sense for them to throw that sort of thing out--and why so many supermarkets prefer to throw out food that nears expiration dates rather than do something else with it. food retailers are typically one of the largest sources of commercial waste in cities--between the food they jettison and the excess packaging they generate and the material the food is shipped in...the numbers i've seen fluctuate between 20-30 percent of the total commercial waste for cities (these numbers for the uk and canada---where this issue has come up more explicitly---i don't have time to search up information for the states, but i can't imagine the amounts of waste generated by supermarkets would change that much---but the percentage of the total commercial waste might well.)
it's a curious thing to wonder about why an outlet like whole foods would be so attentive to questions of "organic" and to a lesser extent "sustainably produced" food---even as they are among the outlets who function to drain these terms of meaning as a result of the scale of their operations--and this is a kinda complicated question to think about, but anyway---why an outlet that markets itself around categories like sustainablity and/or organic and/or natural would not pay more attention to the practices of it's individual outlets and maybe do something else with the food waste they generate.
what's implied by the article is that whole foods just throws out alot of food.
typically the argument for doing that is cost-effectiveness---it's cheaper.
but there are other alternatives: why not cycle non-expired food through food banks, or compost it?
it's a strange kind of oversight.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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