My local food bank can only provide 8 packages with referrals every time before you run out, and I have, but my situation hasn’t improved financially due to various set backs and I’m struggling to feed myself. I’ve heard that supermarkets throw out massive amounts, but have never been in a position where dumpster diving seemed feasible. People who do it, what time of day do you do it and how do you find good spots? UK residents for ref
I wouldn’t trust food in a dumpster, I think the goal of most dumpster divers is to find something of value and sell it. You can try restaurants and stuff when they’re closing if food is all your looking for.
I’ve heard food banks and some eastern religion temples like Buddhist and Sikh temples will serve free food for the needy.
Unfortunately I have neither anywhere near me, and no car to travel, but good to know. I was reliant on my food bank for a while but the COL crisis means they limit the amount of aid each person can claim which sucks
I hate to refer you back there, but there’s a dumpster diving subreddit.
And I don’t know what the schedule in the UK is, but here in the States, people are moving out of their dorms for the summer. If the schedule is the same and you can get over to your local university or college or whatever, you may be able to score not just food, but other things that people just don’t have the energy/ability to drag home.
A friend of mine used to offer end-of-termers $10 for their mini-fridges, clean them up in his shed over the summer, then sell them to next year’s freshers for $40-50. Even if you don’t have a car, you might find some small stuff you can clean up and resell.
Check local churches which will sometimes run food pantries
In the States the 211 service should be able to give you info on your local options as well as food stamps/EBT. The more destitute and challenging your current situation, the more benefits you’ll be eligible for, IIRC.
That said, the wealthier areas may very well have unlocked/unguarded dumpsters, but getting there without being harassed by the local pigs is the obstacle there. I mean, that’s one of their main jobs: keep whitey happy.
the wealthier areas may very well have unlocked/unguarded dumpsters
The fuck kind of world do we live in where we need to guard dumpsters?
If it was a tech company that absolutely needed to ensure data was destroyed and absolutely couldn’t take a risk even with regular office trash, sure. Spend the cash to guard the dumpster.
Locking up and guarding food “waste” that is a day beyond a fake-ass sell by date? Really?
(Obviously, I am not ranting at you. The quoted sentence triggered me a bit, it seems.)
The fuck kind of world do we live in where we need to guard dumpsters?
In most urban places, an unlocked dumpster is asking for all sorts of things that normally cost extra to get dumped. Downtown Minneapolis, an open construction dumpster can go about a day without a mattress showing up (biohazard. Massive. Biohazard.) or shitloads of furniture.
In any case illegal dumping drives up the costs for people who do own the dumpster so most times, they’re locked at the very least.
But yeah, why the don’t donate food they’re not gonna sell , I dunno. That becomes a nice write off and a “we donate xyz fellgoods!”
I work in the grocery industry. For us it’s a liability thing. If you get sick and sue, it winds up costing us even if we win. Given the razor thin margins we operate on, we would have to increase prices to cover the extra cost.
The result is most grocery stores toss anything that doesn’t sell and lock the dumpster.
Some is donated, to be sure, but most is just tossed out.
then there is that, to be sure. lawyers have ruined a lot of things.
in any case, I suspect there’s also logistics involved- getting the donated food to the shelter.
Most places do donate what they can’t sell, unless it’s compromised somehow. Not because of the tax write-off, because that’s kind limited and they basically hit the cap really early in the year. They do it because they don’t have to pay to dump it if food banks are taking it. Having the dumpster emptied out isn’t cheap. The less they need to do it, the less they have to spend on it.
I’ve rarely done it myself but my roommate did often and she got lots of things. Fancier grocery stores are usually the best. Depending on the neighborhood they can be locked though. Wealthier areas will have fewer people scrounging so more likely to be unlocked.
If you are a novice, start with non-perishable goods. Perishable goods can sometimes be fine too but requires more judgement.
That said, I have to believe that there must be more services available to you somewhere. Is there some office in your local government that can provide advice?
fallingfruit.org used to list a few dumpsters that reliably held good food; bakeries especially toss a lot of product at the end of the day
as for tips, check for rat poison first
Here is a free book about it: https://archive.org/details/the-art-and-science-of-dumpster-diving-paladin-press
Many excellent tips and tricks.
Best wishes.
A lot of restaurants end up throwing out food that would otherwise be perfectly edible.
If you’re a polite and patient individual, you might be able to build up some rapport with the owner or the workers. When my friend was in college, he could barely afford to feed himself most of the time. He was friendly with the cashier at a local fast food place and asked if they could set aside any orders that get sent back (due to being wrong) and give them to him instead of tossing them in the garbage. Not everybody will do this for you, but it’s worth asking. I think generally store employees and managers are sympathetic enough to not care about what happens to product that was destined for the garbage anyway so they typically agree.
I’m sure there are some managers that would do this but in my experience that would be the exception rather than the norm. From what I’ve seen, managers tend to be bootlickers who support the status quo and believe in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and think handouts make people weak and dependant (newsflash: barely any human is truly self sufficient).
Workers usually don’t give a single shit, though. Unless you get super unlucky and get one of those “by the rules” type.
Unfortunately, all the edible food at grocery stores gets taken to the food bank.
Large grocers have Garbage’s that are not accessible from the outside, but the only food they throw in there is from the hot bars.
Your best bet is trying at a local health food store, if they have a hot bar or deli counter. Their dump times are between 2-3 and around 7:30-8 (food must be dumped after sitting in hot plates for four hours, assume the hot bar opens at 10 and closes at 7).
If you have a little Caesars near you that does hot n readies, they generally throw out a lot of expired ones. They sit in the warmer for like 30 minutes and then would be moved to the top of the oven until someone brought them out to the dumpster. It was my job at one time, but if anyone asked me for any of the pizzas on the way, I’d give them the full stack if they wanted that much. YMMV. I wasn’t supposed to according to the owner but fuck him, he wasn’t even in the same town 98% of the time and the closing managers didn’t care (one of them even had me bring it out to someone’s trunk that they wanted to help out).
I hated that food waste.
If you don’t have any luck dumpster diving it might be worth checking if any of your local supermarkets (or even bakeries) are using Too Good to Go. They decide how much to put in the package, but a generous place will give you a bunch of food for very little money.
In the UK there is the “Too good to go” app.
I save a lot of money on groceries this way and provide others as well. You pay a third of the original price.
Probably even better for OP if they have no money is the Olio app, where people give away free food (and non-food). It depends on activity in your local area, but in many areas there are people who regularly collect food from supermarkets at the end of the day to give away. I’ve given away portions of meals before when I’ve cooked too much to freeze it all.
I had a friend that was very good at it.
Get in and get out. Dont hang around. Don’t hesitate.
He said he thought it was like fishing in that you just didn’t know what you were going to get.
There’s a couple of YouTube channels of Dumpster Diving in the Uk
