The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Sorry, I find it hard to believe that these bananas are not instead sold slightly cheaper for uses where the looks don’t matter. E.g. for processing into foods where they essentially just get mashed, like yogurts with banana taste or whatever there is. Also selling them to Zoos as I am sure animals don’t care either. Is that really not financially viable?
The scale of demand at zoos is nowhere near the scale of waste. Banana flavoring may be cheaper to produce chemically than shipping real bananas.
Food waste at production is a very real thing.
How often do you eat something commercially produced and banana flavored with real banana compared to eating an actual banana (or even seeing the products in the store, if you’re not a banana person), though? If that were a viable use for the waste, it would be like 40:60 (because zoo populations are insignificant compared to humans). For me, it’s about 5:95, and that’s only because I like Bananenweizen.
Banana pudding, banana bread (storebought), strawberry banana V8, banana chips? I don’t eat a lot of bananas so maybe I’m an outlier but I could see my banana intake being over half non-photogenic from the above listed.
Yeah, it was a totally genuine question, I don’t know what the average is. Banana bread and twinkies occurred to me (but tbh, I suspect most banana bread consumed is homemade and twinkies are probably artificially flavored), but the others didn’t, because I’m too cheap to buy most of those. No idea if I’m an outlier either.
I guess it is also cheaper to get artificial flavour instead, bit sad.
Find it hard to believe all you want. Go watch the documentary showing that it’s happening.
I saw it with my own eyes. There were huge piles of bananas in between plantations in one of the biggest banana producing countries here in South America.
I picked through them and salvaged a few.
Probably many are sold to pig farms, but there were still huge piles just rotting on the side of the highway
Why don’t people just pick them up?
Plantations are pretty far from cities
And the locals that live near the plantations all have their own banana grass
But why dump bananas? Why not sell everything?
Besides, if this were the case, I’d rent a truck just to steal bananas every day.
Probably is, there just isn’t enough demand in those areas to use all of it.
There’s still hungry people all over the world though. Disposing of food at this scale should be a crime.
Recently started growing my own veg, been growing herbs for longer. A lot of veg doesn’t really look like they do in supermarkets. Sometimes it might but a lot don’t.
I know Aldi sell “wonky veg” which is more like it. If I am cutting it up anyway why would I care what shape a carrot is?
I intentionally cut my carrots unevenly, it creates more textural interest.
Really hate to be reminded what they do to bananas. You could change the world with cheap banana beer.
Bananas are fruit so we could pretend to be fancy and call it banana wine.
Add a little honey and you’ve got bananomel
And alcohol free banana wine preparation, comes in biodegradable package, just add milk and stir.
The majority of the fermentable sugars would have to be honey for it to be a bananamel.
Found u/StormBeforeDawn’s Lemmy account 😄
Is knowing how mead is made a secret held by a singular person on the Internet?
Well, he acts like it anyway. Was just trying it on for size, how great would it have been if I was right?
The capitalistic system is only efficient for the owners. Forever everyone else it is a miserable resource extracting time wasting form of slavery
See the problem here is that they’re not applying TRUE capitalism.
These ugly bananas at the very least should be sold for pig feed or converted into banana liqueur. Just like Henry Ford with all his extra wood, a true capitalist would turn waste into profit!
And put all the landlords into jail and redistribute their property to their tenants
/s
Why not just sell the fruit wholesale?
How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up?
I agree with this guy, I would also just drive out to a different neighborhood and sell them wholesale. Nobody has to know they’re cheaper over there. Plus rich people don’t want to go where the poors are, so they’ll never find out. As an additional life hack, I’d choose a neighborhood with a language barrier, even better.
Plus rich people don’t want to go where the poors are, so they’ll never find out.
Who exactly do you think is making the decision to destroy the food?
No, the rich people who buy the food and the rich people who make the food belong to two different social classes and often live in different neighborhoods.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
What I’m saying is that the rich people who make the food are the ones who make the decision to destroy it. You can’t say, “The rich people will never find out” when they’re the ones who would be doing what you’re suggesting.
Oh, I meant the rich people who buy the food will never find out. The people who grow the food are not “rich people” generally, they are land owners and farmers, I don’t categorize them in my mind as “rich people” in the same sense. They have generational wealth and are way more well-connected than normal rich people.
Ultra wealthy class grows the food, sells it to the rich, these are two different groups of people who live in different neighborhoods.
The people who grow the food are not “rich people” generally, they are land owners and farmers, I don’t categorize them in my mind as “rich people” in the same sense. They have generational wealth and are way more well-connected than normal rich people.
What? The companies that own the land are very much run by rich people. And I can’t make heads or tails out of the last sentence. Having generational wealth and connections makes them not be rich people?
If anything, you seem to have it backwards. The customers aren’t necessarily “rich people,” not everyone who buys bananas is rich. Pretty much everyone who owns a banana plantation is.
Which is why you sell it at a lower price instead of giving it away for free… Also, I don’t think supermarket buyers are going to pick up supermarket rejects from the ground.
Which is why you sell it at a lower price instead of giving it away for free
Which means all your customers are now buying at that lower price.
I don’t understand why people keep trying to argue that this doesn’t make sense under the logic of capitalism. If it didn’t make sense, why do they do it? Like this isn’t so much about arguing what is or isn’t economically viable, it’s about explaining why food waste happens. The fact is that they don’t do what you’re suggesting because it’s not profitable.
Doesn’t matter. You’ll make more money because of the higher quantity.
Because we still don’t understand it. Why waste food instead of selling it? Making a loss is always better than throwing your goods away. Ask any fruit vendor on the streets.
Doesn’t matter. You’ll make more money because of the higher quantity
No, you won’t. As evidenced by the fact that they don’t do that.
Because we still don’t understand it. Why waste food instead of selling it? Making a loss is always better than throwing your goods away. Ask any fruit vendor on the streets.
There’s other expenses that go into selling a banana besides growing it. They have to be shipped, in temperature controlled containers, and they need a place to be displayed and sold.
The costs of production are kept very low by paying low wages and the US intervening whenever workers get uppity (Guatemala, for example), so the main expenses are transportation, maintaining the storefront, and of course advertisement. And “misshapen” bananas are calculated to incur more costs through damaging the brand than the cost of simply overproducing bananas.
This is before getting to the point about artificial scarcity, as described in that quote from The Grapes of Wrath. You’re already getting a lower profit margin on the misshapen bananas, but you’re also undercutting your own business! By providing that option, you’re satisfying people’s demand for bananas without making much profit, which is going to reduce the sales on full-priced bananas that you actually profit from. It’s not hard to see how it can end up being a net loss.
Of course none of this “makes sense” except within the logic of capitalism, but it does make sense there, which is why it’s done.
Maybe it has to do with the climate but bananas aren’t shipped temperature controlled in my country and bananas being sold wholesale in tiny storage units without lighting or air conditioning so that explains me not understanding.
So bananas are purposely dumped there to market them as a premium product?
Even the poorest people in my country eat a plantain for breakfast.
Bananas aren’t a premium product. But because they’re cheap, it doesn’t make sense to sell them for even less.
So socialism is when banana not curvy?
most efficient for billionaires that is
food waste is good; that way we are prepared for a true natural disaster
This is a customer problem. Those farmers would happily sell those bananas. Customers, (and that includes anyone buying a banana), will NOT buy odd looking or blemished fruits or vegetables. Y’all just want the perfect ones.
So if you want to piss on capitalism, (for all its other many flaws). You better also be pissing on yourself in this instance. Customers set the tone here. And that’s where the blame lies in this case.
How many customers do you think are going to Guatemala to buy bananas?
You go to the grocery store to buy them. The grocery store has had plenty lessons on just what you will buy and what you won’t. The grocery store won’t buy those odd bananas from their distributor because they have learned that YOU won’t buy them. The distributor won’t buy the odd bananas because they also know you won’t buy them. And neither the grocery or the distributor want to buy a product they know they will end up having to pay for disposal costs when those bananas go bad because you refuse to buy them. And this goes for all the produce in the store. Only the very finest and freshest produce for you!
Someone needs to eat the cost of disposal of things you won’t eat because it’s not good enough for you. And I’m fine with Dole and Chiquita eating those costs.
Yeah! I would never take the option I have literally never been given! How dare I cause 40% of bananas to be discarded!
Clearly the system works, if I’m making decisions like this. Markets are so efficient, they find my preferences before I do.
If I offered you a choice between a small twisted and brownish/spotted banana or a nicely gently curved, plump and fresh looking banana, which one are you going to buy? I would bet long money that I know. And it won’t be the little brownish banana.
What about an apple? One is small oddly shaped apple and wears a scar from rubbing against a branch or has bird pecks and god forbid-- a tiny wormhole! Or a bright red and big red apple? How about a bunch of basil? One has a few brown leaves and show signs to drying or the plump leafed fresh picked bunch?
You do not need to say anything to me. But put the edgy socialist aside for a bit and be honest with yourself. Never be performative to yourself. You will be happier in life.
Dsmn. Yeah the market has spoken. Only the finest most premium products should be sold.
Sell them in a low-income neighborhood for slightly less profit, it’s not that complicated.
Alternatively just donate them.
Go right ahead and try. See how that turns out for you…
Oh no! I didn’t think I would have to just mention having free food and watching charity organizations drive with trucks to get it all. The horrors!
Jokes aside I know it’s not as simple as that, but I also worked in warehouse of a business that sells food over amazon; they didn’t refrigirate the dairy.
There is a lot of stupid decisions not caused by the spoiled consumers. The lesson here is “don’t buy perishables from amazon.”
The way the math works it will always be more profitable to destroy some amount.
