Responses

1. 

   Bob

   July 2, 2016

   I’m told that, originally, before the idea caught on, the roasted chickens were yesterday’s defrosted chickens that didn’t sell. So the shredded chicken would be a second iteration.
   I think it’s great. We buy a lot of roasted chicken at Costco and sometimes Smart & Final. My wife is on a first name basis with the people who work in the chicken department, and they help her pick the best ones. At home, she refers to them as her crew. The quality is good and t’s cheaper and easier than buying raw and cooking it ourselves.
   But here’s the down side of pre-packaged food. A couple of years ago, I caught shigella from the baby carrots in my salad. I ate them before they were recalled. It made me very, very sick. Now, I suppose contaminated food will make one sick whether or not it is sold whole or sliced and packaged. But since then, we make our own salads.

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2. 

   Old Friend Charlie

   July 5, 2016

   I have to opt out here: I don’t believe that Safeway recycles food in the way described.

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3. 

   Old Friend Charlie

   July 6, 2016

   I presented this concept to the Albany (Oregon) Safeway GM (“Safeway sells the food that used to be thrown out or given away back to us.”). His response: “absolutely not!” Yes, Safeway sells pre-packaged sliced fruit but it is ALWAYS prepared from whole FRESH fruit. No exceptions. As for “given away back to us” – there is a virtual industry involved in giving away food about to go out-of-date, thus keeping it out of the dumpsters. It’s the “Food Bank” system, and I assert that it is a virtual industry. That industry also runs the ‘Gleaners’ movement that harvests what otherwise would never get into the food chain but would remain rotting in the fields. About shredded chicken, the Safeway manager said that yes, at a customer’s request, roasted chickens can be and are shredded.
   Doctrinaire libertarians may hate this truth, but it’s a truth all the same: Milton Friedman was simply wrong when he said, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Let me give an example from the old Irish Sea fisheries: when the fleet came in, people came and paid top prices for the best fish, but then, later in the day, a lot of fish was given away to the hoi paloi … why? It isn’t hard to figure out: the give-away underpinned the market, destroying any incentive to out-wait the price. IMHO, a free sector is a normal part of every market. Also, IMHO, Friedman blew it when he abandoned his mentor, Henry Calvert Simons.
   “[T]he main goal of my America trip was an attempt to arrange in Chicago a larger study about the question as to what changes are necessary in the ‘legal framework’ in order to make the competitive economy effective. {Elimination of the free sector has never been seriously proposed as a means “to make the competitive economy effective” – OFC] Unfortunately the man on whom my plans were mostly centered, Henry Simons, died suddenly and I do not know yet if the project can be continued despite that. The idea was a positive complement to my book.”
   Friedrich Hayek, Letter to Walter Eucken (November 3, 1946)
   Like Hayek, Calvert prioritized individual liberty as the basis of political economics.

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