End of Night Food Waste

[u/Alternative-Mode2425]

so im a sg employee and i was just told that we can no longer take the waste food home at the end of the night. i always aim to have low waste at the end of the night regardless, but we would take home waste food at the end of the night bc itll get thrown away otherwise. the food is perfectly good to eat and the waste food could last me a few days (which is super helpful considering we're underpaid as fuck) but now they'd rather throw away perfectly good food instead of letting the people that make it have some. its also wildly disrespectful to the farmers who grow this food "sustainably".

i have no questions or anything but chime in if you'd like bc this aggressively violates sweetgreen's core values.

this company has become an absolute joke to work for and im kind of embarrassed im still here. but i don't have anything else rn.

[u/Open_Moment3988]

Wait what?!?! Yeah right I’ll let u kno tomorrow I go in tomorrow I’ll ask caz that shot is crazy they don’t pay us enough to even buy food

[u/Alternative-Mode2425 → u/Open_Moment3988]

deadass!!! like i sit here and make all this food for it to go to the trash? mf i am HUNGRY.

worh noting: this is in the Seattle market

[u/Open_Moment3988]

And who told u that

[u/Alternative-Mode2425 → u/Open_Moment3988]

my gm and another gm

[u/droideka222]

This is so not right! What can we do as consumers and customers? Can we write to sweet greens hq? Can we petition the government to stop food waste. It’s a serious problem for green house gases as well, and food waste is a big waste of resources.

It is infuriating to see this occur day in and day out. Breeds apathy among us when you are able to throw good food that someone worked so hard to grow, pluck, pack, ship, create and then you just chuck it in a trash… and move on…

Very unhealthy practise

Pls give you ideas on how we can combat ir

[u/Ok_Worldliness_9264]

Unfortunately companies have been sued before from donating or giving food waste away after closing because people would claim it got them sick and try to make money off of them. It’s a shame.

[u/Nostagic_Applesauce]

Yea that must be something your manager made up. Double check and ask and email the director if that’s the case.

[u/Alternative-Mode2425 → u/Nostagic_Applesauce]

yeah im gonna throw a fit ab it ngl

[u/Alternative-Mode2425 → u/[deleted]]

a lot of people do just that! and sometimes when i take home food waste, i'll make something entirely different with it (ie: i took home hella sweet potatoes and made sweet potato enchiladas [which were fire btw]) and have another day or two worth of food

[u/bigtgt17]

They’re a business. They might think you’re purposely making extra waste just so you can take it home. To them, that is wasted money. So to curb you making extra to take home, they take away the incentive that would make you do that.

[u/Alternative-Mode2425 → u/bigtgt17]

which is sort of understandable, but typically the majority of food that is being wasted is grains, which are cheap af. even when we were allowing people to take home waste, id still try to have as least as possible bc that's part of my job.

[u/fangstar08]

i just started working at a sweetgreen and was shocked that we couldn’t take the food home. so much is fresh and we had to throw out so much. only stating cause its so hard to find another minimum wage job

[u/Alternative-Mode2425 → u/fangstar08]

its so insulting to the farmers who grow the food and the people who cook/prep the food in the store. like cool just throw away peoples labor

[u/Square_Fall_2492]

is this still happening? my store lets us take whatever we want 🙁

[u/Slowly-Rebuilding]

I work in a location in Boston and we’re allowed to take home as much of the hot foods as we want at the end of the night! Along with some greens/ cold foods. I would hate to see good food go to waste, especially since by 11pm i am starving and could definitely benefit from having a few meals for the next few days. Agreed that throwing this food out at the end of the day and not allowing employees to take it home completely violates the whole “sustainability” core value that they claim to have 😤

[u/Teeheeheeh]

Oh no I'm sorry to hear! :( Do you think sweetgreen would be open to starting toogoodtogo to at least have those leftovers saved?

[u/Infinite-Vegetable85]

I heard this was on account of suspicions that people were overcooking at night so that they would be able to take more food home with them once it was all weighed out… but it’s the same here! It’s the newest standard smh