Do rich countries and corporations dump food in the ocean to inflate prices?

Question

I've heard this type of thing from a number of people but never gotten anything reliable to reference. I have heard that the Salvation Army published a document talking about the way companies would throw away food, or only donate food that was rotten enough that it couldn't be sold on (as well as forcing aid agencies to sign documents saying that the companies wouldn't be accountable for food poisoning. Any info like this would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Oddly, "food dumping" has a few different meanings, depending on which group / audience you're talking to.

The first link below is a good guide to the most common usage of the term.  In this case "food dumping" (as defined my Annup Shah in this article) is the, "Dumping {of} food on to poorer nations (i.e. free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices) undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty, further slanting the market share of the larger producers such as those from the US and Europe."

A good start to understanding the term.  Though, it also needs to mention that much of the food going into some of these countries, is because they're under sever distress.  This food is to help those that are in desperate need of ANY nourishment.

The other common definition is the one you touched on in your question.  While sometimes food is destroyed to drive up the market price (this is most often crops, orchards, some meat / poultry, basically the foods forming the lower reaches of the production system), it does happen with products ranging from canned goods, to packaged meat, to boxes of cereal.  In this case the food dumping most often occurs because the product can no longer be safely distributed.

Answer 2

City Harvest and Second Harvest have web sites explaining how the donations from restaurants and stores work.  There are some cities that don't allow the use of donated cooked food.  Lots of food ends up in the dumpsters and land fills because the system and transportation, heating and cooling, does not exist to get the food from its source to the hungry people.  Some cities make it against the law to get food out of a dumpster.  Even Madonna ate french fries out of a dumpster until she made income.  In Europe leftovers go to livestock in some countries.  It makes me cry to think we have millions of hungry people in this country with all the wealth that exists.  Best of luck to you in your research!

Answer 3

I used to trade grain commodities a few years ago and a report came out the rice was being dumped in the ocean just to get the price rising. The price of rice was down at that time and that is what they did.