Million Jars of Peanut Butter Dumped In New Mexico Landfill 440
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The Guardian reports that a million jars of peanut butter are going to be dumped in a New Mexico landfill and bulldozed over after retailer Costco refused to take shipment of the peanut butter and declined requests to let it be donated to food banks or repackaged or sold to brokers who provide food to institutions like prisons. The peanut butter comes from a bankrupt peanut-processing plant that was at the heart of a salmonella outbreak in 2012 and although 'all parties agreed there's nothing wrong with the peanut butter from a health and safety issue,' court records show that on a 19 March conference call Costco said 'it would not agree to any disposition ... other than destruction.'
The product was tested extensively and determined to be safe. Costco initially agreed to allowing the peanut butter to be sold, but rejected it as 'not merchantable' because of leaking peanut oil. So instead of selling or donating the peanut butter, with a value estimated at $2.6m, the estate is paying about $60,000 to transport 950,000 jars – or about 25 tons – to the Curry County landfill in Clovis, where public works director Clint Bunch says it 'will go in with our regular waste and covered with dirt'. Despite the peanut butter being safe, Curry County landfill employee Tim Stacy says that no one will be able to consume the peanut butter once it's dumped because it will be immediately rolled over with a bulldozer, destroying the supply. Stacy added more trash will then be dumped on top of the pile. Sonya Warwick, spokeswoman for New Mexico's largest food bank, declined to comment directly on the situation, but she noted that rescued food accounted for 74% of what Roadrunner Food Bank distributed across New Mexico last year. 'Access to rescued food allows us to provide a more well-rounded and balanced meal to New Mexicans experiencing hunger.'"
The product was tested extensively and determined to be safe. Costco initially agreed to allowing the peanut butter to be sold, but rejected it as 'not merchantable' because of leaking peanut oil. So instead of selling or donating the peanut butter, with a value estimated at $2.6m, the estate is paying about $60,000 to transport 950,000 jars – or about 25 tons – to the Curry County landfill in Clovis, where public works director Clint Bunch says it 'will go in with our regular waste and covered with dirt'. Despite the peanut butter being safe, Curry County landfill employee Tim Stacy says that no one will be able to consume the peanut butter once it's dumped because it will be immediately rolled over with a bulldozer, destroying the supply. Stacy added more trash will then be dumped on top of the pile. Sonya Warwick, spokeswoman for New Mexico's largest food bank, declined to comment directly on the situation, but she noted that rescued food accounted for 74% of what Roadrunner Food Bank distributed across New Mexico last year. 'Access to rescued food allows us to provide a more well-rounded and balanced meal to New Mexicans experiencing hunger.'"
And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Insightful)
In this litigious society, who can blame them. You can damn near guarantee that they'd have hit one bad jar in a lot that large and gotten the tar sued out of them. If you want to fix this situation and make sure it never happens again, demand tort reform in this country.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the real reason is that if they give it away that's 950,000 jars of peanut butter they wont sell. Hard to compete with free. Never mind most of the people getting it free would not be able to buy it anyway.
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There's a hole in your logic. The donated peanut butter would go to those in poverty who are, in all likelihood, not shopping at Costco in the first place.
Donating things to people who aren't your target market doesn't harm your potential sales.
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Informative)
You just couldn't read all three sentences, could you?
Re: (Score:3)
It is a little difficult to parse at first glance. He's saying that Costco is completely focused on the "jars they won't sell" aspect (first two sentences).
By concentrating on that, they're blinded to the issue that the homeless wouldn't be buying peanut butter at Costco anyway. So the third sentence is really the key point, that Costco should do a facepalm when they realize the problem with their logic.
Carry on.
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They probably thought that there must be a tiny percentage of people who might buy peanut butter if they can't get it from a food bank for free.
Also, it would probably be spun to look bad if they were giving away "sub standard" food to the poor anyway. Can't win here.
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Funny)
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Sounds like someone trying to justify piracy. Why are you trying to pirate peanut butter?
You wouldn't pirate peanut butter would you? I mean if you already have the peanuts, salt, sugar, etc. and mash them up by yourself you are stealing money from the huge peanut butter conglom, er, I mean hard working peanut factory workers.
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Informative)
The ONLY thing required to make delicious and nutritious peanut butter is peanuts. The salt and sugar and everything else added in is a scam and degrades the product.
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A bit of salt makes most foods taste better (in the opinion of most people) and adding salt is in no way a scam.
I personally have a strong taste preference for the natural style peanut butters which have just peanuts and salt, but I have been disappointed whenever I have tried an unsalted nut butter.
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Oh no - it's a scam all right. Consistently using salt stimulates your sense of taste so that if you don't use salt the taste is bland. If you stopped using salt you would be able to taste the unsalted food again after your sensitivity level returned. I have proved this to myself time and again with the first such experience being the move to peanut-only peanut butter. At first because I was expecting the doped-up tripe that serves for commercial peanut butter I didn't much like the peanuts-only peanut butt
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I have been disappointed whenever I have tried an unsalted nut butter.
That's what she said.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why on Earth do you think that the appropriate way to punish the bigwigs making these decisions is to make the employees' lives harder?
Re:Costco's target market DOES buy extra goods (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't do this Costco will not be affected by it, you'll just be inconveniencing and aggravating the staff who will have to restock them.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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Well, somehow I kinda doubt that working for Costco is a career choice where you really have a lot of option if you don't really like it there...
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Informative)
No, Costco isn't for the >$250k set. It's one of those places where you buy a 24 rolls of toilet paper in a package instead of 4. The prices are very reasonable, and adjusted for the higher quality, are comparable to Sam's Club (which is owned by Wal-Mart), which does the same "big-lot" stuff.
In fact, Costco is a pretty responsible company. They pay their employees more than all of the other mainstream retailers and give them decent benefits. They find ways to keep costs low, for example, by only allowing payment by cash or American express, if I remember correctly. Their prices on TVs and consumer electronics are pretty good, but there's not much in the way of floor sales staff to help you out.
I'm all in favor of boycotts. I think it's one of the best tools to influence corporations next to labor strikes. But you have to make sure you have the right targets.
Rather than worried about losing peanut butter sales directly, they might be worried that if it turns out there are some health problems with these packages and they give them to food pantries, it could really hurt their image. You know, "Costo Poisons Poor People" is probably not what you want to see in the paper if you're Costco.
Anyway, I buy my peanut butter from small local stores, who grind up the peanuts themselves and fill up the little tub I bring them, adding about 1/4 cup of flax seeds for every 2 cups of peanuts. I love those flax seeds. They add omega somethings or other plus they make me shit like a goose, which is always a bonus.
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Funny)
Let me be the one to tell you that it is quite nice to read your posts, but please end them a sentence early from now on. Thanks.
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately there is a degree of truth to the OP's comment about Costco being afraid of getting sued. I used to volunteer at "under privileged" schools and staff were specifically told not to give food to children in need but to direct them to one of the official programs. Litigation was cited as one of the reasons, as well as concern about children flying under the radar and not getting all the help they needed, etc. The cafeteria wasn't even allowed to give out unused food. The school district in this case was very concerned about getting their butts sued off because of a well intentioned act that went bad (it had happened before). It was a disheartening situation all the way around.
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Your link only shows that one authour was full of shit. The way I heard it, it was before there was a USA and this article references enough letters to show it was probably true and if not then it was planned. http://www.nativeweb.org/pages... [nativeweb.org] shows Lord Jeffrey Amherst as full of hate and genocidal against the native Indians with multiple discussions (actually postscripts) about giving the Indians smallpox blankets and handkerchiefs.
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Obviously it never got to the point of a large number of blankets. If you scroll down the page to the conclusion I linked to you'll see
Trent's entry for May 24, 1763, includes the following statement: ... we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect.
Along with reports that by the following spring smallpox was raging amongst them.
As for the Church, as recently as the '50's if not more recently (Church ran residential schools only ended in the '90's) the Government of Canada along with the Church were doing medical experiments and dietary experiments on the native population in the residential schools. Generally, to judge
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Food retailers run the risk of product liability with every item they sell. And as was mentioned elsewhere the Emerson Act [foodtodonate.com] would likely shield Costco from liability. I think it's more likely that they just don't want the PR nightmare. "Costco deems salmonella-factory peanut butter unsafe for general sale yet gives it away to the poor." Either way, I agree with you that it would be cheaper for them to bury the food. And perhaps just outright donate a generous sum to a couple of food banks to help bury t
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Your logic is not sound. The profit margin to be lost over one shipment of peanut butter is small change. Even if they made a 50 cents profit per jar, we're only talking about $475,000 in profit to be lost. But let's look further. The peanut butter would be donated to food banks and the like, for people who can't afford enough food. Did you know that Costco, like Sam's club, requires membership to shop there? So are you suggesting that these people with such a low income that they cannot afford food a
Without James Sinegal, Costco is not well managed. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) We don't know what actually happened between Costco and the testing facilities and suppliers. Even though samples were tested, there could be a concern that there were problems in the food that was not tested. Costco has not handled the public relations about this incident in a sensible manner: Costco officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment. [csmonitor.com]
2) Costco has become poorly managed since James Sinegal [wikipedia.org] is no longer CEO.
Ten years ago, Costco was wonderful. It was easy to make decisions about buying anything we saw at Costco, because someone else had been careful to stock only reputable products, products that people would buy if they had done serious research. Now we have to do our own research.
Costco employees still praise James Senegal. They sometimes criticize the poor quality of items that Costco now stocks.
Re:Without James Sinegal, Costco is not well manag (Score:5, Informative)
In true Slashdot spirit, I've only read the summary, but even that was enough to tell me that Costco is doing the right thing here.
The jars are not sealed. They might test OK now, but by the time the food banks get through the stock, who knows what organisms have made the jar their home.
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And it is pretty much guaranteed hat someone is going to get one of these jars and suddenly develop some tummy ache and report directly to the lawyers.
Re:Without James Sinegal, Costco is not well manag (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though samples were tested, there could be a concern that there were problems in the food that was not tested.
There is actually a principle in the regulation of food and pharamceuticals that you can't "test quality into a product."
You build quality into a product by controlling the manufacture, and testing really just serves as a confirmation that all went well.
There is no way to sample peanut butter such that you can be certain that there isn't a microbe in the part of the peanut butter you didn't test. Now, you can make that risk fairly low as you sample more and more, but if there was reason to suspect the integrity of the product in the first place then you can imagine the lawyers lining up.
And, as others pointed out, if they give away product for free they still face liability, make no money, and potentially undercut their own sales. If some poor guy dies of salmonella you can imagine the tales of a company feeding them peanut butter that they'd already determined isn't good enough for ordinary people...
Re:Without James Sinegal, Costco is not well manag (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite. People are ready to lynch Costco for applying some sort of standards to what they will buy and put on the shelf. They will reject things that Walmart will happily accept. This is by no means the first time. This is probably not the first pile of food to be "wasted" because Costco chose to err on the side of safety.
I can understand why they simply don't want to be associated with the listeria outbreak factory. It boggles my mind that ANY ONE here wants to push the issue.
Even if they've tested this stuff, I would still be suspicious of it just because of where it came from.
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I can understand why they simply don't want to be associated with the listeria outbreak factory. It boggles my mind that ANY ONE here wants to push the issue.
I can't understand why they want to dump this organic material in a landfill with other random trash.
Even if it's unfit for human consumption --- it can still be used as an energy source or fertilizer, due to the valuable raw nutrients contained in peanuts.
Re:And so this is Costco's fault? (Score:5, Informative)
True, they will lose 950,000 jars in sale if the would donate.
Your statement is ludicrous. If they donate the peanut butter to the exact people who shop at Costco and who would have bought peanut butter anyway, then yes, they would lose sales. But that's not even remotely what would happen. What would happen is they would donate the peanut butter to people who wouldn't have bought it at Costco anyway. They would not lose out on one cent of sales./P.
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If nothing else, in this case, they should have received a special dispensation from the FDA.
Similar incidents in areas with large game kills. Hunters cannot in some jurisdictions (Maryland) give the meat from population management hunts to food banks or the like without going through the entire inspection process, at their expense.
There's no liability (Score:5, Informative)
Clinton signed the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Emerson_Good_Samaritan_Act_of_1996
So no legal reason no to donate food.
Re:There's no liability (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There's no liability (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the extensive testing, gross negligence would be a really hard sell.
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And at what cost to Costco? Are they going to be able to recoup cost of legal defense? Not likely.
Re:There's no liability (Score:4, Interesting)
The real question is whether that projected liability cost would offset the bad PR cost (intangible but notable).
Really surprised Costco let it get to this point and didn't find a middle ground to spin it. They had to know social media would be all over this in a really bad way (facts be damned as usual).
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There was and is no way for Costco to win. If they donated the food, I can assure you that there would have been equal outrage over the gall of Costco dumping food it considered unfit for consumption on the poor. If they donated the food and people actually got sick an unbelievable shit storm would occur. And if they don't donate the food you get the idiots who can't see the problems with donating raising a stink.
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it's not about it being a hard sell..... it's about having to pay for lawyers to defend yourself over and over. it's not worth the time, and 60k doesn't buy very many hours of lawyer time.....
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"Nothing in this section shall be construed to supercede State or local health regulations." I wonder what the state regulations are.
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Dang, states' rights makes the problem worse yet again.
Rancid Peanut Butter? Mmmmm. (Score:5, Informative)
The company shut down in 2012. These were produced prior to the company's closure. This is probably not safe for human consumption at this point.
Consumer peanut butter's got a shelf life of roughly a year or two at most, generally. This stuff is on the edge of that point, if not past. A million jars of peanut butter being donated would probably sit on the shelves in a home being eaten over the course of a few months, which definitely puts it past the point where the peanut oil may begin going rancid -- and that's not accounting for all the jars that will sit in storage, probably for months if not years, waiting to be given out.
Donated food is usually donated because something was mislabelled or a pallet came loose and it wasn't suitable for sale due to damage to the container that doesn't jeopardize the product itself. This has been in storage for years. This is not suitable for donation, this is a bunch of jerks trying to make themselves look good and try to drum up donations while making a company that HAS given them donations in the past look bad because they're not giving them donations right now.
Re:Rancid Peanut Butter? Mmmmm. (Score:5, Informative)
The company shut down in 2012. These were produced prior to the company's closure. This is probably not safe for human consumption at this point.
According to TFA, the plant shut down in 2012 after the salmonella outbreak, but then reopened, closing again in October 2013. Presumably the peanut butter being landfilled will have been produced in late 2013, which leaves it well within reasonable shelf life.
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Perhaps, but how fast do you think a million jars of peanut butter are going to be distributed in New Mexico? The state barely has two million PEOPLE in it.
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That I don't know about. Just commenting about the likely production date. Peanut butter jars don't last very long in my kitchen, but that's just me. :)
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Perhaps, but how fast do you think a million jars of peanut butter are going to be distributed in New Mexico?
So the reason that brought you to the conclusion you did was proven to be incorrect, and your reaction to this event was to immediately theorize about another reason to get to the same conclusion?
Which came first, chief?
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WHy si this part being overlooked?
"but rejected it as 'not merchantable' because of leaking peanut oil."
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I saw that in TFA, but it specifically says "leaky peanut oil", not "leaking". It was unclear to me whether this meant the jars were actually leaking oil, which is certainly indicative of a problem or if it meant that the oil was leaking out of the peanut butter but remaining inside the jar, which isn't a problem and is typical of peanut butter that's been sitting for a while. If that's the case, it just needs a stir.
Re:Rancid Peanut Butter? Mmmmm. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rancid Peanut Butter? Mmmmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Leave me out of it, you fat bastard.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No, no, we love corps. They always provide clear reasons why they want to destroy food, and succeed in communicating them rapidly. Also corps are people, and to err is human, so corps fuck up and shouldn't we just love them all the more for that.
New Mexico Landfill? (Score:3, Funny)
E.T. loves his peanut butter pieces...
New Mexico landfill, eh? (Score:2)
This could put the E.T. documentary guys in a sticky situation.
If any slightest illness was ever even *suspected* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If any slightest illness was ever even *suspect (Score:5, Informative)
There's a law that avoids liability for food donation:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-104publ210/pdf/PLAW-104publ210.pdf
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Assuming you're right, that may work in the courts. With a judge. That definitely won't matter with the court of public opinion and probably wouldn't work with a jury.
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How's the decision to destroy it working in the court of public opinion?
Not so cut and dried. (Score:2)
There's a law that avoids liability for food donation:
"Avoids" is much too strong a word.
State and local health regulations are not superseded.
You remain legally responsible for injuries or deaths which result from your gross negligence or intentional misconduct. If it comes out in court that you donated food you knew had gone bad or was very likely to have gone bad, you are in trouble,
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Why can't they be up front, open, honest: "We wouldn't eat these jars of peanut butter, but they've tested safe. Take them at your own risk."
The article notes that food banks remove the labels anyway.
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No. But a week of Honey Boo Boo and Jersey Shore will.
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Nope. Liability can only happen in the case of gross negligence. Clinton signs a bill to this effect.
I suspect that this might have to do with the fact that the jars were leaking/ But, hey that means it makers sense and isn't some corporation being meanies, or some false idea that it's due to the tort system. Which, btw, is fine and the amount of 'odd lawsuits' is very, very low.
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Then sell it as livestock feed. Pigs eat far worse than peanut butter. Boil it up along with the rest of the slops to kill off any salmonella, and it'll be perfectly safe (if disgusting, from a human point of view).
Still a waste of perfectly good human food, but at least it's better than burying it with the trash.
sandwiched together (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, at least all of the Atari E.T. cartridges now have an accompanying snack food.
How much peanut butter? (Score:5, Funny)
million jars of peanut butter
Jars of peanut butter come in many different sizes. Could you please convert the amount to Olympic Sized Swimming Pools?
Thanks.
Re: (Score:3)
Jars of peanut butter come in many different sizes.
Not at Costco, they don't. Costco sells thing in only 1 size: fucking huge.
But more seriously, if this happens to be the Kirkland brand natural peanut butter that Costco sells, it comes in a 2-pack of 40oz jars.
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A little more than 1/100. The weight of water in such a pool is 2,500 tons. The weight of the peanut butter is 25 tons. Water density is 1 g/cc. Unsalted peanut butter is 1.09 g/cc.
convergence of wealth, lawyers, and arrogance (Score:2)
Dumping $2.6 million worth of editable food when there are people starving is shocking to most of us. Yet, this is a reflection of our current law suit happy society.
Most of us has very little to loose and most food banks has very little to loose so our local food bank gladly take in our donated food items and we happily go on with our lives do what we can for people who are starving, one canned food at a time. Also, I've volunteered at the local food banks and base on what I've seen, Costco peanut but
Re: (Score:2)
Most of us has very little to loose
Costco doesn't fall in that category.
After all, corporations do not understand the physical pain of starvation.
Completely irrelevant since corporations don't make decisions or understand things. People do.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you heard of high frequency trading algorithms?
Re:convergence of wealth, lawyers, and arrogance (Score:4, Informative)
That is because under law, the corporation made the decision and did the crime.
No, it's because the US Department of Justice decided not to enforce [nytimes.com] the law. That sort of corruption doesn't have anything to do with the business being a corporation.
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I see two people here [ober.com] for a rather large case of Medicare fraud for which their company "plead guilty".
Captain Joseph Hazelwood was convicted of negligent discharge of oil in 1990 with respect to the Valdez oil spill of 1989.
There's an actual summary [ussc.gov] (see page 5) of individual convictions for violating antitrust law in the US.
Over the past decade, from FY 1999 through the end of the second quarter of FY 2009, a total of 246 individual offenders were convicted of Sherman Act violations, the vast majority under section 1 and seven under section 3.
That's just f
billion dollar world, million dollar lawyers (Score:2)
and
What's wrong with this picture?
Re: (Score:3)
and
What's wrong with this picture?
Africa, the continent in need of this kind of aid, refuses to take even GMO food aid:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/afr... [bbc.co.uk]
Which is eminently safer than whatever's in this peanut butter.
It's often been said: The world doesn't have a food shortage problem. It has a distribution problem.
African, one of the most famine stricken places on earth has 60% of the worlds uncultivated arable land.
http://philmatibeceo.wordpress... [wordpress.com]
In the U.S. where food is plentiful, we end up throwing food away if it's even remotely suspec
Re:convergence of wealth, lawyers, and arrogance (Score:5, Funny)
Dumping $2.6 million worth of editable food
Damn, I thought they said it was read-only peanut butter.
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"I've volunteered at the local food banks and base on what I've seen, Costco peanut butter is probably an upgrade to the various expired high fructose laden supermarket rejects"
The food banks I've volunteered at have very high standards and a big part of the volunteer's job is to weed out expired, leaking, or generally icky-looking packages and throw them away. I wouldn't be surprised if we threw out 25% of the stuff we inspected, especially on the frozen food line. Our instructions included something alo
It's... (Score:4, Funny)
Lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
"All parties agreed there's nothing wrong with the peanut butter from a health and safety issue" isn't legally binding on anyone who might later decide to sue the company. At best it might make lawsuits harder depending on what the exact liability rules are. Furthermore, even if they win the lawsuit, fighting one will cost money and bad publicity, especially when the newspapers can use the spin "it's from a plant that was condemned for salmonella poisoning, how irresponsible can this megacorp be?"
If they give away the peanut butter, they stand to lose quite a bit with nothing to gain except a little good publicity (said good publicity going down the toilet if anyone actually sues).
Nicely skewed (Score:3)
Is it to avoid claims for payment on the shipment from the bankruptcy estate? Is it fears for later liability? Is it, as the summary tries very hard to imply, sheer obstinate evil?
If you're not going to even attempt to hide your bias, why even bother?
Re: (Score:2)
This is slashdot, the write ups are always "fair and balanced".
Could we please stop (Score:2, Offtopic)
With these click-bait posts from Hugh Whazzizname's blog multiple times a day here on Slashdot?
Or at least give us an effective way to block stories by submitter?
Humans are not 100% efficient? (Score:2)
Humans are not 100% efficient? I can't believe it, I mean we're all statistical robots are heart... Right? Right...???
Please give this tainted "butter" to some needy 3rd-world shiathole. I will feel better in my mansion.
One of these things is not like the other. (Score:4, Insightful)
What "all parties have agreed to" for the narrow purpose of settling a bankruptcy suit is not the same thing as "accepting legal responsibility for the charitable distribution of perishable foods that have been in storage for a minimum of two years."
If you want to ignite a food riot in a school or prison, serving rancid peanut butter is as good as any place to begin.
Animals/Fuel (Score:3)
Are people the only animals that consume peanut butter? Can't this be converted to biodiesel or something? I understand the concern for human illness, but aren't there other options?
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Landfill? (Score:5, Interesting)
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This Isn't Necessarily A Bad Thing (Score:5, Interesting)
This sort of thing has happened before, and it will happen again. An even better example was when the MV Cougar Ace almost sank, and 4700 brand new Mazda cars hung at a 60 degree angle for several months. [googleusercontent.com] They never moved, and they were all in seemingly perfect condition.
Mazda chose to err on the side of caution, [neatorama.com] rather than risk a lawsuit. Or even worse, there was a very valid concern that they would become "Katrina Cars". A coat of paint, and they would be bundled up and sold in some other unsuspecting country. [nbcnews.com] (On a side-note, the destruction process is really cool! [wsj.com].)
With waivers not being worth the paper they're printed on, it's simply not worth the risk of getting sued.
And finally, there's the "soft damage" to take into consideration? Remember the kid in preschool who "had cooties"? That kid KEPT those cooties, right up until graduation day in high school. Costco might never allow a single jar to hit their normal distribution system, but just the simple fact that the peanut butter even exists at all, is a risk that someone, somewhere, will say, "Whoa, Costco peanut butter might have salmonella."
Play "Telephone [wikipedia.org]" with that for a while, and suddenly Costco can't pay someone to take a jar of peanut butter. This is actually a very safe, very beneficial tactic for Costco.
Now consumers can be absolutely guaranteed that they will never have to think about whether Costco peanut butter is safe.
And in retail, that's money in the bank.
Recycle (Score:2)
Libability (Score:3)
The issue here isn't that CostCo is being numb, the issue is that people can sue CostCo if they claim to be sick from the peanut butter. Even if the food bank gives it away, and the person that gets it gives it away, the chain is still there, and CostCo is still in the sights of a plaintiff as a target for a suit.
This is pretty much why railroads will shred brand new cars if they were in a derailment. It's easier accounting to pay the manufacturer for the car than to risk 100,000 or more in liability because the car "might have been" damaged in the derailment leading to the suit. Hmmm. $40K for the car an know that's the end of it, or risk potentially $100K+ payouts for decades after from someone that might not even be born yet? It's simple math.
Curious how things change (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day (1980s), I helped run an emergency food pantry in Southern California. At the time, Sol Price (founder of Price Club, which I believe is one of the constituent chains that merged to become CostCo) donated pallets of dried milk to us to redistribute. In general, these were pallets where there had been damage, so some of the packages were not usable - the vast majority of the packages, however, were fine.
At our pantry, that donation made up a substantial part of what we gave out to people, especially those with children.
I always thought it was both generous and great business sense for them to donate that food. After all, Price Club got a tax write off, there was less waste, and the hungry people got food without it impacting Price Club's sales.
Woe to the archeologists (Score:3)
Landfills again... (Score:3)
Other /.ers have covered the issues around the peanut butter well enough. What no one has mentioned is the continued idiocy of landfills in the US. Why doesn't the US incinerate? You get energy out of the trash, destroy poisonous chemicals, recover the metals, and at the end you have a much smaller volume of waste that needs to be disposed of.
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Incineration is illegal because it causes pollution.
Seriously, I remember about 35-40 years ago, the private grade school I attended would incinerate their trash. Then it was banned.
Pests? (Score:3)
Isn't dumping so much of an edible in one location just eventually going to attract a large vermin population?
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I wonder how corps manage to remove tax liability so thoroughly?
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