How do we handle expired food?

Question

foods from meat to produce and packaged goods...do we use most of them for fertilizer or compost?

Answer 1

"Expired" just means it can not be sold to the public.

When the consumer has it at home, most foods are good until several days or weeks after the exp. date.

If stored properly.

Often when fresh refrigerated meat reaches its expiration date, it is repackaged, frozen and put back on the shelf (freezer).

It will now have a longer life.

Other than throwing it away or composting at the landfil.

Some items can be dotated to food banks, if it was maintained properly, no spoilage etc. maybe up to 2 days past the exp date.

Many stores were hesitant to do this years back for fear of being sued if someone were to get sick, but the Good Samaritan Law circa 1990 gave them protection.  They get a tax write off which is better than writing it off as a loss, and look good in their community.

Some still don't like doing it for health concerns and they want to keep the price of food up high, economic & political reasons.

Some produce and packaged foods, esp. bakery products, can be redirected to animal feed.  e.g. Pigs

If there is a concern, the farmer cook it first.

Answer 2

throw it out

Answer 3

Composting meat can be done but it is tricky and most counties restrictions of how and where meat composting can be done. Contact your county cooperative extension service and ask about this (listing is the gov section of the phone book)

You could think about donating the expired meat to a animal rescue place (I am thinking places the rescue and rehab raptors or wolves, etc.. Not a dog/cat pound). These places are always looking for meat

Composting produce is easy enough to do. Packaged/processed goods can be a problem especially if they have a lot of oil/fats in them. Such foods make is difficult for the compost organisms to do their job. Food that is sugary is great for the compost pile (the micro critters love sweets) but may attract vermin too

Answer 4

You can have food poisoning bacteria in garbage. Only if properly processed, then that's fine, it is organic material being recycled but you don't want the wrong bacteria in the soil.

Answer 5

Depends on who you are talking about. Grocery stores throw it in a dumpster.  Manufacturers seldom let foods expire, but I'm not sure what they do with things like the thousands of pounds of hamburger that were recalled.

Answer 6

I have worked in a variety of markets and food places.  Most spoiled food goes into the garbage.  After that, the food is disposed of in a variety of manners, including composting, dependent on the local civil government regulations

Answer 7

Most of them goes right down to trash can.

Answer 8

That would get awful funky!!!