The supermarkets here where I live don't do that but our military commissary does. You can get some great buys. They also have a meat section that has mark downs.

Yep, they all do. I love getting large bags of bananas for my mom to freeze for her banana muffins.

Winn-Dixie has a 5-tiered thing on rollers that has "used" produce (that's what we call it). If I'm having the urge to make banana bread, I look there first. I'll buy a green pepper if I'm going to use it right away.

On sort of the same subject, I read in the paper today that the writer of the article had been in Sam's and saw an employee cutting the chicken breasts off the rotissiere chickens and dumping the rest of the chicken in a large plastic bag. He asked her why she was doing that and she said they use the breasts for their chicken salad and throw the rest away.

In both cases, produce and chickens, don't you think a homeless shelter would just love to have them? Still lots of meat left and the carcass would make great broth. I, for one, am ashamed of the waste.

Banana's are all I've ever seen discounted here. The bakery products go out in the dumpster! It is so wasteful.

There used to be a store a few towns over that made a good income by selling dented cans etc for half price.....our store sells the dented cans for full price! LOL

Ours usually has a cart of discounted items sitting someplace in the store. Last week I bought toothpaste, barrettes, and some other stuff. Earlier this year, I found several bags of charcoal for $1.50 because they had holes in the bag.

Yup, we have a big shelving unit full of distressed produce, cans, and bakery.

In my store they keep the distressed produce right with the rest of the produce LOL. I regularly have to dig through bags of brown or soggy lettuce to find a decent bag. The practically rotting avocados are sitting right there with the rest of the avocados. The dried out petite baby carrots are sitting right along with the newer bags. No discounts offered either.

I always wondered where the Berkeley Bowl got its name. I've only been there once and spent a long time as there was much produce to see!

Nothing "distressed" here; sometimes over ripe bananas are marked down.

Patti43, I had to smile at your used comment. Kroger has a small section in the meat dep't where they have marked-down meat that is near exp date. I often buy that meat, and for years have referred to it as used meat!

Stores are afraid they might be sued if someone buys distressed products and then get sick. Can't blame them.

Several years ago I was helping with Vacation Bible School, and a clerk was throwing away boxes of expired date donuts. I mentioned that our kids would love to have those, so she gave me the whole bag full. This was a trash bag size bag. She told me later she could have been fired for doing that. She was new and oops! nobody told that was a NoNo. And I for sure didn't know it either.

You know the old saying: No good deed goes unpunished.

Sue

We have one of those multi-shelved carts on casters in several grocery stores that have the original barcode obscured with magic marker and a new price written in marker.

ole joyful

LOL, Sue va! We call meat with a "sale" sticker on it used meat, too. Small world!

None here that I know of. I did see bananas at 10 cents a lb last month. They were all very ripe, but people were buying them.

They mark down meat, bakery & odd items....but produce not so much. Just bananas. If you ask, they have over ripe avacados they will mark down in the back room....on request.

We have 2 Bargain Marts. Which are stores that cary dented cans and out of date food...like salad dressing....50cents a bottle. Some times they have Farmers crops that are overages....like cantaloupe & watermelon. .50Cents & $1.

One store that I regularly visit has always got a cart full of reduced produce, and then there's a big section in the meat area with a lot of reduced-price stuff. I buy stuff there all the time and get some great bargains.

Our grocery has a cart at the back that they fill with bruised or damaged produce or bags of slaw mix that's out of date tomorrow or something and it's always an excellent buy. In the meat dept, they'll put a $2 or $3 coupon on meat that's getting a little dated. Woody loves that, he likes aged meat (not chicken, though, ew) and loves the bargain, too.

Pattico, that is horribly wasteful and I encourage you to contact the home office about it. You are so right, a food kitchen or women's shelter would love to have them.

Yes, ours does have a mark down section, always has bakery and produce items and sometimes they pull a cart or two up with canned or dry goods. I always check it out, we buy a lot of fruit for the critters at this time of year, and baked goods as well. The critters are getting ready for winter so we help them out.

My store has a markdown rack in the back which probably no one notices, not produce though. I'm always amazed at how little they mark down the useless junk on the racks.

patti43, small world, great minds!

Sue

My local grocery used to re-wrap slightly damaged fruits and vegetables at low prices (like 25 or 35 cents). I once got 8 limes for a quarter, took them home and made limeade. They stopped doing that a few years ago. Another store used to have a table for day-old bread. That's gone too.

We own grocery stores and all our *distressed* items are given to the local food bank, produce, bread, dented cans. I don't believe meat is.

The Food Bank gets all that stuff around here. I just read a newspaper insert from the Northern Illinois group. It actually serves all the collar counties around Chicago, out as far as Joliet. The city has its own bank.

It's not hard to understand why so many Americans are considered to be below the poverty level -- it's so low! Where could you live on less $11,000 a year? (Poverty for a single person.)

Stores used to have various markdown areas but not much anymore with the exception of discontinued items which they'll usually put in a cart or on a bossy and place somewhere in the store. Often near the departments the discontinued items were in.

Refundable items go to r-claim if it's a guaranteed sale item but that won't include any fresh foods. Mostly it's H&B items.

I used to buy a lot of things like sausage when they had it "use today or freeze" and the price was next to nothing. Occasionally I'll see some marked down meats but not much. I was looking at some bacon the one day and the prices varied so much. It was dependent on the expiration date. Then I noticed a lot of it was moldy. I told the butcher meat department worker and he got all defensive and started sputtering "it's the fluorescent lights that do that!". Uh, don't you think you should pull it off the shelf buddy? I quit buying meat at that store after that. Some of the older chicken goes to the deli for the deli chicken and I suspect a lot of the meat that gets old could well be put in the grinder for hamburger. Not sure about that but it would make sense.

Funny you should mention produce. I was at Target yesterday and they were putting out peppers, well trying to. The guy was looking at them and probably 4 out of 5 got tossed into a garbage box. I suppose it goes to the trash. I didn't look close but from a distance they didn't look that bad but I think since grocery is new in these stores they want to keep quality up there.

Lastly, there is a Cub Food in Forest Lake where every morning a guy comes in with a station wagon and picks up (apparently) all of the old bread and bakery products. I was told he's a local pig farmer and feeds it to the pigs.

Kfca, I've been to the Berkeley Bowl many, many times. Love that place! I grew up nearby.

There is only one market in my area (Lunardi's) that has a good variety of "distressed" produce. On Saturday I have two Farmer's markets within 5 miles of each other where I buy all my produce for the week, plus other goodies.

The original or the old Safeway Bldg. across the street?

BTW, Berkeley Bowl opened a huge new store called "Berkeley Bowl West" in the last year which is REALLY SOMETHING! You can google the story. Also, the parking is so much better at their new place, which probably helps out at the old place, which still exists.

I actually like Monterey Market for produce best though, but it's not that convenient to get to for us.