Company throws away massive amounts of food for clients, refuses to feed its own staff: 'They cut down the food budget by $700'

JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor

Jun 1, 2026 9:00 PM EDT

Food waste can be incredibly upsetting.

The worker in this story, who shared their tale on the antiwork subreddit, had a lot to say about it within their own workplace. If you've ever worked in food service, you know just how much can get wasted. Due to food safety regulations, sometimes you have to toss large swaths of food that seem edible. It probably is edible, you just can't be sure. This can be frustrating. Then there are big companies that care much more about the bottom line than they do about sustainability. They don't care that food is being wasted. If it saves them money, they'll do it. If you're in the unfortunate position of being the one who has to throw away all that food, then it can get under your skin. Especially if you struggle with food insecurity in the first place.

Nobody likes a hypocrite. It's hard to look at someone who has everything and realize that they have the ability to improve your life and they're not going to do it. When you realize the people in charge have access to seemingly an infinite amount of money, and you struggle to put food on the table, then that's a huge issue. It can make you feel like nothing is going to change, and that can be pretty disturbing. We want to feel like we have control over our workplace, and that we're not at the whim of someone else's decisions. That's what happened here.

via Salah Ait Mokhtar

A person dumps out a bag of orange peels in a photo representing food waste
Company would rather throw out food then feed staff that can't afford to eat.

via Alwayswandergetlost
via Alwayswandergetlost
via Alwayswandergetlost
via Alwayswandergetlost
It can be hard to feel powerless. You want to feel like you're making a difference in your community and at your job, and when you have no control over that, it's hard to feel invested. That's exactly what this worker was feeling when facing a difficult food issue in their workplace. The way they saw it, they were being asked to do something unethical, and their company wasn't doing the right thing in a tough situation. The way the company saw it, they were just trying to maximize profit. Keep scrolling to read the full story and see what you think was going on here.
Commenters agreed that this was a tough but ubiquitous situation.

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An image representing food waste, with vegetables in a trash can
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