Undercover Boss

Posted July 27th, 2010 in Ume's Interests 2 Comments »

I watched a tv show “Undercover Boss” last night on channel 10.  It’s the first time to watch this show (I think there’s one previous episode the other day) and yesterday boss was Seven Eleven’s CEO.  He traveled around the country worked undercover in stores, bakeries, coffee outlets, in the distribution centre etc.

I thought it was a really interesting concept.  Especially Seven Eleven is the company I used to work while I was a student in Japan, and my mum still works there.   I emailed her as soon as I finished watching the tv show.

I know there are many many food waste 3 times per day at convenience stores (not only Seven Eleven) and it happens everyday nonstop.  In Japan the shops throw away onigiri, bento, pasta… everything as soon as they are expired.  I’m not sure about America, but in Japan each item has a sticker of “expiry time”.  If there is a bento with an expiry sticker saying “15:00 22/Feb”, and if it’s 15:01, shop staff must throw it away in the bin.  It’s the safety standard thing.  But, of course, food doesn’t go bad immediately after the expiry time, they are still edible.  But at the time I was in Japan, it was a company policy that any expired food must not be taken or eaten by shop staff.  They must be thrown away.

I think it’s very good that this American CEO is considering to build up the charity process for the expired food.  I just can’t stand watching the food which are still edible thrown away to the bin…

Japan should also consider the charity or do something about the waste – expired food –  It could save people’s lives.

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2 Comments on “Undercover Boss”

  1. 1 Megan said at 2:05 pm on July 27th, 2010:

    Hi Ume
    That is very interesting! It is unbelievable the food that is thrown away every day by stores. What about all the bread that is left over at the bakeries? A church I went to used to collect the bread on Saturday night (from two different bakeries) and give it out at church the next day. If there was any left we used to take it into the backpackers in Fremantle. All the backpackers loved it – free food!

  2. 2 umepontarou said at 7:27 pm on July 27th, 2010:

    Megan,

    I used to work at a bakery in Claremont, and the bakery threw away the left over every day. One day somebody came to the bakery and asked if he could take the left over bread on every Saturdays and give to the charity. The owner of the bakery didn’t want to do it ! (><) I felt really bad. I really think it's much better to give to people rather than throwing away in the bin! It's really hard to see the food being thrown away, but I think Australia is doing good, as you said some bakeries do give away the left over to the charity. I talked to my mum and she said it's bit hard to do the charity thing in Japan...


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