Thursday’s power outages forced Montreal grocery stores to dump hundreds of groceries, many of which were salvaged by diehards.
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“I know the process, I had to throw away groceries myself when I worked in a grocery store, but it’s still so frustrating to see,” says Joanie Valiquette.
The 24-year-old Montrealer hasn’t had a dumpster dive, often called dumpster diving in English, for several years. Since power outage often rhymes with food waste, she took a walk in the yard of a grocery store. Among the foods found were frozen meals, fruit, orange juice, vacuum-packed smoked salmon, ham and fresh pasta.
Photo Facebook Joanie Valiquette
“There were three tons full to bursting, when I opened the lid, food fell on me,” she says.
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solidarity momentum
In the Facebook groups dedicated to this practice, several members give each other advice on where to look for products. Although major collapses like yesterday bring dechetarians joy, the fact remains that the realization of all these food losses saddens them.
“It’s upsetting, I’m really outraged that so many unsold items end up in the trash,” lamented Gabrielle, a mother of 4 who has been a garbage collector for the past 4 years. The Longueuil resident wasn’t so lucky to visit her usual dumpsters, but she encouraged people in the group to keep an eye out.
Many of them have a habit of bringing home some of the groceries they find in community fridges. Located in the Pointe-Saint-Charles neighborhood, Thursday was completely filled with sausages, packaged humus and fresh vegetables.
The loss
With all this food waste, many are wondering why charities haven’t been called in to recover this food. Unfortunately, the owners of three of the affected grocery stores refused to give us an interview.
Instead, Canada Trade Council President Michel Rochette spoke on their behalf to explain the situation.
“If a pack of meat has been thawed or heated, even if it looks good, there are food safety issues. […] There are temperature and maintenance commitments that we have to meet,” he mentions, explaining why so much product is thrown away.
He also stressed that every effort was made to keep the food cool using generators and refrigerated trucks and that losses were relatively small.
However, if we look at the dozens of photos posted to various Facebook groups dedicated to dumpster diving, we can see that several hundred dollars’ worth of food was thrown in the trash.