Entire Food items Rebuts Viral TikTok About Discarded Food

Lately, TikToker @dumpsterdivingfreegan went viral, garnering additional than 2.5 million sights for filming what appeared to be hundreds of pounds worth of seemingly edible foods from a Entire Food items Sector dumpster. In a single submit, the account, which has over 351,000 followers, showed a dumpster dive haul that yielded an assortment of meats, vegetables, and fruits.

With the holiday seasons approaching and numerous Americans living in poverty, the write-up evidently struck a chord.

Does Complete Meals Industry throw out food items fairly than donate it?

The solution, in accordance to a Entire Foods spokesperson is: No. The company does not trash very good food items.

“Our policy is to donate or upcycle food items,” he provides.

The grocery chain, which was purchased by Amazon in 2017, has a strong application in put in which food items is donated to a variety of companies by means of a network of persons who coordinate pickups. The spokesperson claims Full Foods donated about 27 million foods in 2020 to foods-rescue and redistribution systems nationwide.

To make sure the food will get into the appropriate fingers, Entire Meals associates with Meals Donation Connection, a countrywide organization that donates thousands and thousands of pounds of perishable and nonperishable foodstuff to nearby foods banking institutions and rescues. In addition to Full Meals, Foodstuff Donation Connection works with other properly-known food stuff businesses which include Wawa, Pizza Hut, Olive Backyard, Auntie Annie’s, Cracker Barrel, and Chipotle.

“They link us with neighborhood food items-rescue corporations and aid the transportation of the foods,” says the WFM spokesperson, incorporating that Food items Donation Relationship acts as the intermediary among the retailers and the food items financial institutions.

Entire Foods also has a program referred to as Nourishing our Neighborhoods that offers refrigerated vans to neighborhood-dependent foods rescue courses. “We donate vans to food items agencies so that they can transport foods securely,” the WFM spokesperson states.

As for the TikToks that exhibit Whole Foods Current market goods being pulled from a dumpster, the spokesperson states that the corporation has been trying to get in touch with @sumpsterdivingfreedon to learn where by they discovered the things. “The movie does not incorporate any details that would make it possible for us to truth examine or confirm its accuracy,” he says.

The spokesman notes that even though the foodstuff could glance edible, that might not be the circumstance.

“If a refrigerated scenario goes out right away, we have to toss the foods out. They cannot be eaten,” he says.

Ellen Bowen, web site director for Foodstuff Rescue US – South Florida, confirms that her corporation has a longstanding day each Sunday with Full Foodstuff.

“Every single Sunday we load up an complete minivan with food items from Full Foods,” she says, detailing that the food stuff is then transported to businesses in the Miami region. Bowen provides that other organizations decide up food from Total Foodstuff on other times of the week.

Full Foods isn’t really the only South Florida grocer that donates food items.to neighborhood companies. Trader Joe’s, which just opened a area in Coral Gables, donates 100 percent of all unsold (nevertheless however consumable) products to neighborhood nonprofit, community-dependent corporations through its “Neighborhood Shares” application. Publix also donates its perishable food items, partnering with Feeding The us, according to its web-site.