free food out of supermarket bins ?????

A question about : free food out of supermarket bins ?????

hi there
i've jus watched a programme where a group of people who live in camper vans and call themselves freeganists spend no money on food but go bin raiding at supermarkets at night, is this allowed ?? some of the food was only in there as the outer packet had been torn eg multi pack of mini bags malteasers an they got loads, most still in date as well.
what a waste why don't the shops sell it off cheap in store or give it a homeless shelter or something.
with 7 kids myself i was quite tempted to nip down my local supermarket after dark

Best answers:

• I know a woman who used to work for Boots, and she told me they used to give the excess food to the homeless but someone sued them for getting food poisoning from it. They paid out Ј25,000 - and stopped giving the food out.
  I image most places would turn a blind eye to freegans though, since they couldn't be held responsible for the quality of food taken from their bins.
• hi there
  i've jus watched a programme where a group of people who live in camper vans and call themselves freeganists spend no money on food but go bin raiding at supermarkets at night, is this allowed ?? some of the food was only in there as the outer packet had been torn eg multi pack of mini bags malteasers an they got loads, most still in date as well.
  what a waste why don't the shops sell it off cheap in store or give it a homeless shelter or something.
  with 7 kids myself i was quite tempted to nip down my local supermarket after dark
• most supermarkets crush food because they might get sued as stated above they cant even donate to animal sancturys or shelters because of red tape I work for a supermarket and they don't even let the staff have it cheap or free they crush it
• in Oxford a charity group has just started recycling the food from 4-5 supermarkets. must have sorted the legal issues out
  in terms of the freeganists - can't really disapprove, but it is a crime
• Someone on another thread said that they lock the food from some supermarkets in big compounds at night to stop freegans from taking it, but instead of it going to landfill they burn it to create fuel which is then recycled and used. I used to work for Mr S and I was told we used to give leftover food to homeless shelters but we couldn't incase one of the homeless people got sick and sued the company, I thought it was ridiculous, I never thought it had actually happened At least I feel better that it's going to a good cause now and not just all going to waste.
• I used to work for Tesco, and I'd be one of the people to sort through the waste. Anything that I deemed as ruined, would go in the compactor and be destroyed. Things that could go back out would be reduced and reassessed later on. Things that were from multipacks where the bag had split etc would go in staff sales, things like bottles of beer, cans of lager, crisps etc. I wouldn't have honestly thought there was much for the taking for Freegans. Plus I wouldn't eat anything that had been in the bin.
• At a weekend market I go to sometimes, that is a fruit market during the week, there are usually boxes of veg abandoned near the carpark. Maybe the freegans forage for stuff like that.
• I used to work for safeway we used to watch them on the security cameras once we saw the owner of a local curry house in there fishing out chicken breasts.... lets just say no one from safeway ever ate at that curry house again!
• i did it alot over a period of yea 13 yrs ago, it was disgusting the things they threw away, toilet rool, kitchen roll etc just becuase of a little hole in the packet, i used to get bacon within its sell by date alot, i must have done it at least twice a week, i ralrely had to buy any food except milk etc...... it is totally illegal unfortunatly, as i foud out when the local police came to arrest me, i got let off with a caution, but it is stealing, and if i got ill from the food i could have then sued. such a waste.................... the did lock the bins in a compound but we climbed over it.....
  dont some of you harsh mesers critisise me for doing this along time ago, you dont and wont know the circumstances in wihich i had to do it...
• I saw that programme too, I assumed that companies have to remove food from their shelves after the use by date but for any other items they would put in their reduced section.
  Maybe it's cheaper for them to bin the items rather than pay staff to mark down. It is such a waste - would I ever give bin raiding a go? If it wasn't illegal then I probably would yes.
• It's not illegal and you can do it, the only problem being it's private property and is trespassing so you could get asked to move on.
• I would advise you to be careful if you are considering doing this, a good friend of mine used to work in a supermarket (a rather high end one at that!) and they used to get people hanging around outside by the bins when they closed to get free food (rather than buying it reduced) and instead of doing something charitable like giving it to shelters etc they were instructed to pour bleach and other chemicals on it to make sure that no-one could eat it!
  Complete waste, and totally immoral IMHO, but just be aware that the supermarkets are not fans of giving out free food, and so they may have a few ways of making sure its inedible!!
• I've been in LIDL & they've laid stuff out on the packing shelf to help yourself to - which I think is pretty civilised of them.
  What a waste bining food. I've heard of the fregan movement & think it's great.
• I used to get told of at boots the chemist for bagging up the out of date chiller foods for our local homless. we had three or four reg tramps that came for there food. i made them little lunches lol. boots were so tight and these guys were lovely and very polite. i hate seeing waste.
• https://freegan.org.uk/
  I think it is illegal though.............