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Store in Oregon That Threw Out Food Is Confronted by Angry Activists

Author: Maria Cramer

Cramer, Maria. “Store in Oregon That Threw Out Food Is Confronted by Angry Activists.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Feb. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/us/oregon-fred-meyer-food-snowstorm.html.

1 additions to document , most recent almost 3 years ago

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Mar-21-21 paragraphs 19-20

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The dumpsters outside a grocery store in Portland, Ore., were filled with food that employees had tossed after a snow and ice storm over the weekend knocked out power at the store.

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Soon, a small group began forming in the parking lot, angry that so much food was being thrown away in a city where more than 300,000 customers had lost power and where homelessness is a major concern.

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What followed on Tuesday afternoon was a standoff between employees of the store, part of the Fred Meyer chain, who argued the food had spoiled and was unsafe, and a group of activists who wanted to dive into the dumpsters and salvage what they could for themselves and others who were snowed in and could not get to stores.

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Mar 21
Christopher Sloan Christopher Sloan (Mar 21 2021 5:40PM) : safety vs. food waste [Edited] more

The store management claimed that it felt it had an obligation to protect people from making themselves sick with tainted food. But it makes me wonder what they do with the wasted food every day. I’d be surprised if an employee was assigned to monitor dumpster diving every day.

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“I was just saddened and appalled,” said Juniper Simonis, 36, an environmental biologist who showed up at the store after learning on social media that the food was being thrown out. “I had personally never seen that level of waste during a time of that level of need.”

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Portland police officers outside a Fred Meyer grocery store after a group of people confronted employees who had thrown out refrigerated food.

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Portland police officers outside a Fred Meyer grocery store after a group of people confronted employees who had thrown out refrigerated food.Credit...@JuniperLSimonis
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The Portland police said they had received a call from the grocery store at about 4 p.m. reporting that a group of people were arguing with employees outside and refusing to leave.

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According to Morgan Mckniff, an unemployed chef who uses they and them pronouns, the group was small at first — just three people.

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In an interview on Wednesday, Mckniff — who had lost power over the weekend, was out of food and wanted to get something to grill outside — said there were nine employees standing outside the dumpsters.

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Mckniff began filming and asked the employees if they were guarding the dumpsters. An employee said to stop filming or the police would be called.

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By the time the police arrived, about 15 to 20 people had gathered in the parking lot, Mckniff said.

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Kroger, the grocery giant that owns Fred Meyer stores, said in a statement on Wednesday that the food that had been discarded was “no longer safe for donation to local hunger relief agencies.”

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Mar 21
Christopher Sloan Christopher Sloan (Mar 21 2021 5:40PM) : store owners perspective again
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“Our store team became concerned that area residents would consume the food and risk food-borne illness, and they engaged local law enforcement out of an abundance of caution,” the statement said.

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Kroger, which has touted its commitment to “Zero Hunger” and “Zero Waste,” laments on its website that many Americans struggle with hunger while “40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. is thrown away.”

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Christopher Sloan Christopher Sloan (Mar 21 2021 5:41PM) : Kroger seems to recognize that food waste is a problem [Edited] more

More information about Kroger’s plan to reduce food waste: https://www.thekrogerco.com/sustainability/zero-hunger-zero-waste/

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The company said in a statement that Fred Meyer stores donate 5.5 million pounds of surplus food a year.

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At one point on Tuesday, there were about a dozen officers outside the grocery store, including three officers in training.

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Mckniff said the police had threatened to use physical force if the activists did not leave.

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Mar 21
Christopher Sloan Christopher Sloan (Mar 21 2021 5:41PM) : seems like things escalated unnecessarily
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The Portland Police Bureau said in its statement that no one had been arrested or injured and that no force had been used.

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For hours, the dumpster divers took out containers of cottage cheese, frozen waffles, butter, yogurt, almond milk, cured meats and sausages. Simonis, who uses they and them pronouns, said much of the recovered food would have been fine for days outside a fridge.

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“I still haven’t processed mentally the waste that was there,” they said.

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Mckniff said that at one point, people had laid the food out on the sidewalk so passers-by could walk up and take it. One woman made four trips to the dumpsters to get enough for families in need.

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Mar 21
Christopher Sloan Christopher Sloan (Mar 21 2021 5:42PM) : That probably triggered the store's reaction. more

People were giving away their discarded food for free, and that probably upset the store managers. Is a store responsible for people getting sick on the food they threw away. I don’t think so.

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Much of the food went to fill 11 community refrigerators that are set up around the city, Mckniff said.

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Grabbing the food from the dumpster felt liberating, Mckniff said.

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“All we wanted was for them to walk away and leave us alone,” they said. “If you’re not going to help people, at least stand aside so that we can.”

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DMU Timestamp: March 19, 2021 22:17

Added March 21, 2021 at 5:47pm by Christopher Sloan
Title: paragraphs 19-20

(Somehow these paragraphs got left out of this article when pasting into NowComment. They should go between paragraphs 19 & 20 of the story above) ...

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The police said they had stayed for about an hour and had left when it appeared that the crowd was moving away from the employees.

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After the officers left, one woman approached the dumpsters and came back triumphantly holding a bottle of strawberry lemonade.

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Emboldened, the activists headed for the dumpsters.

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The police said they had been called again to the store but did not return.

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“Police supervisors decided that unless there was an imminent threat to life or threat of serious injury, police would remain away,” the police said.

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Christopher Sloan Christopher Sloan (Mar 21 2021 5:49PM) : Portland police response more

With all that’s going on in Portland, I think the police made a good decision here. I don’t think taking discarded food out of a dumpster is a crime.

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For hours, the dumpster divers took out containers of cottage cheese, frozen waffles, butter, yogurt, almond milk, cured meats and sausages. Simonis, who uses they and them pronouns, said much of the recovered food would have been fine for days outside a fridge.

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DMU Timestamp: March 19, 2021 22:17

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