Wastage at Singapore bakery

Letter from Wong Pei Shan (Miss), Straits Times Forum 12 Apr 08;

I WAS at the Vivocity Cedele Bakery Depot last Thursday night with some friends having after-dinner desserts. We were there from around 9pm till its closing time. At around 9.20pm, my friends and I noticed something disturbing.

One of Cedele's staff started clearing all the loaves of bread from the shelves and disposing of them in garbage bags. Feeling incredulous at what we were seeing, one of my friends asked if she was throwing all the loaves of bread away. When she said yes, we were shocked. My friend probed further and asked why she was throwing away all the bread. The staff member then told us that the bakery's management does this as it wants to keep its bread fresh.

My friends and I estimated that there were easily 20-30 packets of bread on the shelves. If this act is repeated in all of Cedele's branches across Singapore, imagine how much food is wasted per day. My question is: why, in times of food shortages and rising food costs, does Cedele continue with this wasteful practice? I believe the bread on the shelves is at most a day old and, as far as I know, people have not gotten sick and have no qualms about eating bread that is a day or two old. While I laud Cedele's dedication to maintaining food freshness for its customers, I am also disturbed at Cedele's wasteful act.

I have two suggestions for Cedele: Local organisation, Food from the Heart, has a Bread Distribution Programme which started in February 2003. It collects unsold bread from bakeries and hotels and distributes it to welfare homes and needy families - I am sure the number of people who require food assistance has grown, given that newspaper reports have shown more people are finding it increasingly expensive to put food on the table. Cedele can consider joining this programme.

Secondly, it can also sell off its food products at a lower price nearer its closing time, like some bakeries do, in order to clear stock for the day and minimise wastage. In times of inflation and continuous rising costs, it is perhaps prudent for Cedele to control the number of loaves of bread baked per day and not over-produce. If there are still leftovers, then Cedele would do well to think of ways to minimise wastage instead of simply throwing away food.