A grocery store near me /always/ has meat marked down 50% because it’s expiring. It is complex and difficult for grocers to accurately predict how much stock they will need. So they take the sloppy approach of ensuring the stock on something never runs out. They prefer to mark down by 50% than to lose a sale due to not having stock.
Of course this is because they have prioritised profits above environment, health, and animal welfare. It’s more socially responsible to, e.g., let the chicken breasts run out when there are still chicken legs. We need to stop giving a shit when meat eaters might not get exactly what they want.
Indeed I benefit personally.. first the meat industry is subsidised by the gov. Then my price is further subsidised by the discount thanks to the meat buyers who pay regular price. But it’s a fucked up situation socially. Meat should not be pushed like this.
So new rule:
All meat vendors must keep inventory, purchase stats, and a state-defined set of relevant criteria for prediction. They must calculate the stats such that there is an expectation of running out of every kind of meat product before the next shipment. They must track their fuckups (expiry and markdowns) and report to the gov -- who can then examine the accounting and micromanage the meat orders.
Every step in the chain of meat (+milk, eggs, etc) production and sale prioritizes profit over environment, animal and human health, and animal welfare. You're barking up the wrong tree.
If the retail stores must buy less meat, how does that fail to reduce meat consumption? There is of course a direct relationship between consumption and purchases.
I don't disagree, I just think focusing specifically on meat waste at supermarkets is perhaps the wrong place to focus? If we organically reduce demand for meat, then the supermarkets will naturally stop carrying as much.
I think the idea of supermarket transparency is nice, but if the true horrors of animal product production aren't enough to change people's behavior or attitude, I don't think publishing some numbers will.
The EU is already focused on food waste (all food, not just meat).
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20250905IPR30172/parliament-adopts-new-eu-rules-to-reduce-textile-and-food-waste
These are not conflicting ideas.
That’s a bit vague. Do you mean convert people to vegan? That’s much harder, but making supermarkets run out of stock would have that effect. ”No meat at the store today, so we will try this vegan dinner”.
It’s not about publishing the numbers. The inventory and stats would only necessarily need to be shared with the gov, who would be empowered to act when the numbers are outside of acceptable thresholds.
They are not. There are people who will only cut back or give up meat if access to meat becomes costly or inconvenient to obtain. People are addicted to convenience and this exploits that.