Most people could never imagine themselves sting into a sandwich grok out of a dumpster , but the boundaries blur when you ’re talking about a sealed Italian sandwich of very expensive cheese . Things get even hazier when you factor in the most wholesome of administration … Whole Foods .
It ’s old news show now , but for the naive , there ’s a large " freegan " subculture of multitude whose meals are source primarily from restaurant and grocery dumpsters . And back in 2009 , a group of my supporter ascribed to this life when they discovered a lucrative loophole in Whole Foods ' distribution connection that let them forage grand of dollar bill ' worth of seemingly good food .
I never visited the dumpster myself ( though I once boom on some of its fingerling potato ) , but I did question two of my friends about the experience . Their identities have been sustain anonymous because they obviously do n’t want this on their lasting cyberspace book . Here are their level , introduce without judgement .
Jason Hoffman/Thrilist
Joe Doempster Diver:“For about a year , me and my three roommates did n’t really grease one’s palms nutrient . We would go to a few other Dumpster too , but Whole Foods always had the demented stuff . I would n’t say I was the ringleader , it was n’t on the nose a top - down process , but I was one of the people that went the most . "
Jane Doempster Diver:“I only went five or six times , but my Quaker were lead twice a week . We went in the dead of night on bikes , wear headlamp . It was the type of dumpster that you would enter through the side , not the top . At first I would n’t get in because I was afraid of rats , but like anything , you acclimatize .
" The most expensive thing we ever retrieve were these full wheel of Italian tall mallow . They cost like $ 400 each . "
Dan Gentile/Thrillist
Joe:“By the end , one of my partners was wearing a full bodysuit and basically kick the bucket spelunking . But I was more of a snatch - from - the - top case of bozo . "
Jane:“The business district Whole Foods location has a trash compactor , so the Francis Scott Key was to go to their statistical distribution center where all the food for thought was fell off . It was n’t like we were going through the trash , it was stuff that did n’t make it into the stores . One hundred percent was box goods . "
Joe:“There were a bunch of truck drivers there and at first did n’t give a f**k . They ’d just ascertain us and wonder what all these hippie kids were doing . "
Flickr/jeffreyw
Jane:“Usually there were two people in the dumpster and two alfresco that they ’d be hand thing to . "
Joe:“We found the case of stuff I ’d never buy . Most everything was a one - clip find . The first clock time we went there , they had these 20ft - long bag of full loaves of bread . The whole dumpster was full of it , we were jumping around on it . It was the most expensive dinero they sell , the seven - grain form . We filled up a whole bivouacking back pack . "
Jane:“Once we launch all this lettuce in plastic container . It was the most uneconomical packaging ever . We were building towers of them , we took about 15 . "
Flickr/Matt Baume
Joe:“You could get gal and gallons of milk and yogurt . It ’d be fresh off the hand truck , so it ’d still be refrigerator cold , not expired or anything . "
Jane:“There’d be all these singly twine rice puddings , you ’d be standing on top of them while you ’re grab for the lettuce . "
Joe:“The most expensive matter we ever find out were these full wheels of Italian cheese . They cost like $ 400 each . "
Flickr/wetwebwork
Jane:“We consider milk had pour forth in the hand truck , because the publicity was all wet . But since the cheese was in wax it did n’t affect it at all . We did the mathematics , it was something like $ 10,000 worth of cheese in there . It seemed like more Malva sylvestris than you could ever exhaust so we did n’t take it all , but finally we were making terribleSchindler ’s Listjokes about it . ' I could have gotten more ! I should n’t have will those cheeses ! ' "
Joe:“Other than the cheese , the craziest was during the big peanut panic attack . "
Jane:“The last time I went was during the salmonella peanut outbreak . They recalled earthnut all over the country . The next day , sure enough there were a ton of peanut vine products . "
Joe:“There were boxes and boxes of Clif Bars . Anything that had peanut in it . "
Jane:“Pre - packaged wintry Thai chicken meals . gargantuan bags of dearest - roasted peanuts . We justified it to ourselves because we say that if they were really dangerous , Whole Foods would be legally bound to ruin them . Or perhaps that they ’d only affect erstwhile people and child . We had made a bunch of peanut butter from all the egg , but none of our friends would take us up on it . "
Joe:“We also find all these true pine nuts . That was the mother load . "
Jane:“The pine testis were in 9 lb , vacuum - sealed bags that were as bountiful as kegs . We took home 10 of them , as many as we could carry on our bikes . They ended up dispersed throughout Austin , people entirely unrelated to us would end up having some . "
Joe:“We commence to get wind to can food because when we found produce , we could n’t eat it fast enough . "
Jane:“I do n’t remember what we cook , but we once made a 100 % dumpster - doven Thanksgiving dinner . "
Joe:“At this decimal point so many the great unwashed were pass to the dumpster that we ’d run into admirer there . It was like sound to the actual food market memory board . "
Jane:“Nobody ever receive sick , not even slenderly . We had this theory that most of the things had arrive at slightly the untimely temperature so they had to be throw off . Like the truck was one degree too cold . "
Joe:“At some tip the truck drivers start up calling the constabulary , so there ’d be cop stationed there . If you get wind them , you ’d just keep biking past times . I guess they talked to us one meter , but nobody ever got in bother . "
Jane:“They put a lock on the dumpster , but people would just break it . finally they build up a fence so that you could n’t get in , that ’s when it block for good . But some of us still have a little scrap of those pine nuts in our deep-freeze . "
