<p>ok, so i just got a job at burger king and i think it's terrible how much food they waste every single day. if we mess up an order we throw it away. "expired" food that's only been sitting there 10 min gets pitched. fries and onion rings and tomatos and it seems like everything else just gets thrown out. it's very sad considering many people would love to have this food but cannot. a couple of fellow workers and i wanted to start a petition to have the food saved, but i was talking to some people about it and they said it was a good idea but it wasn't practical to save all the food because it gets bad/stale pretty quick and it would be a hassle to find where to take it. </p>
<p>i want to work out all the details before presenting the petition/proposal, so i was wondering if anybody had any ideas of what to do with this food? i tried searching online for any existing programs for this sort of idea, but i couldn't find any..but if someone knows any be sure to let me know. thanks for any ideas/insights.</p>
<p>I also hate to see food going to waste, especially when there are millions left starving in the world. It's especially disheartening when food that is only minimally spoiled is thrown away, because most items remain edible for a considerably longer time than is usually thought. My aunt is a nutritionist, and she has often lectured on this topic at her university and abroad. (and if anyone has the Norton Reader anthology of nonfiction, there is a piece in there - "Dumpster Diving"- which is very interesting and touches on the topic of wasted food). </p>
<p>Anyway, to get to my point: </p>
<p>This past year for a community service project through my internship we visited local pizzerias and collected the extra pies they had made that were either not made to order or were rejected by the customers and otherwise would have been thrown away. We then took the pies to nearby homeless, women's, etc shelters and they were very welcome there, so that's something you might want to try. It worked pretty well for us, and many of the restaurants were very willing to partcipate. </p>
<p>I'd warn you though, it was often difficult (at first) to get in contact with whoever was in charge of discarding the pizza, or the customer service people, whoever takes care of these sorts of things. It took us about a month or two to get everything settled and the schedules worked out for picking up the extra pizzas and taking them over to the shelters. Also, we had a newsletter through the internship group that goes out every month, and we offered to put the restaurant's advertisement in there as a type of incentive for them to actually help us with the service. If you can find some kind of incentive for the restaurant it would be even more appealing to them to help you out. </p>
<p>Liability about spoiled food was a concern for us, however, we took the food immediately before they closed and so the pizzas were relatively fresh and could be frozen and reheated to be eaten. I don't know how well this method would work for other types of food, though.</p>
<p>I hope that helped! Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.</p>
<p>Obviously, it's doable, but it's not as simple as, just bagging up the food and dropping it off at a shelter. It can get a little complicated, especially since you have different foods. Personally, this isn't something I would do alone. I know you have some support, but ask others to help you research, because this could be quite a project.</p>
<p>yeah I agree,
my group had a lot of help, especially from our internship advisor, and she was able to help us negotiate with the restaurants
if you can find someone in the community who is willing to sponsor you, that would be best</p>
<p>well pretty much the entire staff at bk agrees with me and will support me, and plus im going to have the customers sign a petition too. i just want to work with the bk i work at first and if it's successful then maybe try to get other restaurants involved. the only problem i need to deal with is how to keep the food fresh or at least edible all day. if i can present a good way to do this im sure the managers will let me try it. also, do any of you guys think it's a good idea to give it to farms instead? do farm animals eat this sort of food? thanks for all the replies, guy.</p>
<p>I think it's a bad idea to have the customers sign. This makes BK look really bad. I think there's a difference between supporting and helping. This is no small task. Are your co-workers willing to really get involved in this thing, or is it just that they agree with you?</p>
<p>I think that it's very noble that you are trying to do this, but I believe that the big corporations like grocery stores and fast food chains have thought long and hard about the feasibility of this (since donating wasted food could give them a significant PR boost), and decided it was a bad idea and not worth it. You should still try though, but just know that if you fail it's okay.</p>
<p>Wait until you work a Friday or Saturday night at close, and the General Manager isn't there. You will see people cooking all kinds of food left and right so they can take it home to their family and friends. The funny thing of this is that I have known people who have been fired for eating these exact french fries that they normally throw away.</p>
<p>You guys should work at a movie theatre. We never throw away popcorn. The bad part though is that a new theatre came into town so we're pretty much dead, so a couple bags of popcorn will last several days.</p>
<p>I think that Panera donates their pastries to local charitable organizations, but bread keeps a long time, and they just want to say they have "bread baked daily" and do something with the rest. I wouldn't see getting fast food someplace as being easy like bread.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know panera workers who take home all this bread all the time, and they donate some too. Isn't a problem that like fries and other stuff would have to be used like immediately? Not just sent off right away?</p>
<p>Man i remember having to work at burger king. Nothing could take me back to those days. I had friends who made more money selling pot than I was sitting around behind that stupid register listening to over weight soccer moms order food.</p>