What is salvage food, and why would anyone purchase salvage food to consume? Let’s take a peek into the multi-billion-dollar retail food industry, but let’s look at a side that most people are unaware of. You and I must eat to sustain life, so what do we do? We shop at our local grocery store. The task of grocery shopping is not a concept that is difficult today as all cities and towns have small and large grocery stores where we can shop for our favorite food items.
If you are like me I go aisle by aisle choosing brands I trust and food items I like to eat; if I stumble upon the cereal aisle and start looking for my favorite cereal I will not purchase a box that looks distressed. I will immediately push the distressed box aside and put the box behind it in my cart. Do you do the same thing? I want the best-looking box or package I can find…and retailers understand this thinking.
I am also looking for the freshest product dating when shopping at a big box grocery store. Any product that is consumed will have a “best by” date or some sort of freshness date printed right on the packaging. Take for example salad dressing, if I pick up two bottles of ranch dressing and compare “best by” dates…I am going to choose the bottle that will last longer on my shelf. How about you?
If two items examined side by side are identical except for “best by” dates, which one is a better deal at full retail price? The one that will last the longest, correct? But what if you could buy the same salad dressing at 50% of retail just because the “best by” dating shows this product has a life only six weeks left? Would you then purchase this item at a tremendous savings?
Let’s go back to the example of the distressed cereal box for a moment. Would you buy the cereal box that shows signs of bent corners if the cereal bag inside was undamaged and the price was 50% of retail?
I would, and millions of American families would as well. Enter the salvage food industry.
Grocery stores will routinely pull boxes and packages that are distressed off their shelves and send these items to reclamation centers where they are re-wholesaled to small salvage grocery retailers.
A salvage food retailer buys all the near-dated food and distressed items and then retails them to smart, budget minded shoppers for literally 50-70% off of retail.
