A quick primer

Hi everybody. It's Sunday afternoon* in Townsend, Georgia, which you likely haven't heard of. We're staying in a little log cabin inside an RV park. There are few restaurants nearby, so we'll be getting dinner from the Piggly Wiggly across the street. They had a pretty good frozen section - I have my eye on a white mushroom lasagna (sucker for a bougie package.)

Last week, after the inaugural issue of The Haul, I got hundreds (maybe 3 or 4) questions about what, exactly, a surplus grocer is. I've thoroughly spammed everybody about this obsession on Twitter, and my employer was generous enough to let me write about it in a semi-official fashion. But it's a semi-niche subject, so let's do a quick overview.

The first time I heard about the surplus grocer concept was in the mid 20-teens, when I was writing about food waste for Modern Farmer. The former president of Trader Joe's wanted to open a store to sell nearly-expired perishables, in a predominantly Black, lower-income neighborhood. Before it opened, there was significant backlash at community meetings, along the lines of "don't sell us your trash and call it a gift."

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I was fascinated by the friction, a lot of it stemming from clunky messaging at the top. Doug Rausch, the former TJ's guy, made some iffy statements with the sour whiff of white saviorism and profiteering. In true disruptor fashion, he also acted like it was his brand-new idea, when surplus grocers have been around for decades. (You've likely crossed paths with the Grocery Outlet chain, which started selling surplus government foodstuffs back in 1946.)

And yet, the concept is sound. There remains a monstrous food waste problem in the U.S., and a not-insignificant amount happens at the grocery store level. Food that is perfectly good but cosmetically damaged, discontinued, or near/past expiration (yet perfectly safe), continues to end up in our dumpsters and landfills. Meanwhile, hunger and food insecurity run roughshod over our rich country.

Not here to preach! Just teeing up the concept for you, and why it interests me beyond the novelty and thrift. It's satisfying to think that I'm cooking well more than half of my meals from foodstuffs that may never have had a chance to be eaten.

There remains a good deal of mystery to the supply chain, I must admit. Where do all the rented trucks come from that end up at this nondescript, wildly popular little shop on the edge of Manhattan, perpetually unloading pallets of novelty hummus and lupini beans and Gogurt and beef? How are prices negotiated between the store and the sellers? How does this secondary market operate? And how do they ensure the food won't sicken their customers? (I have a 100% illness-free record.)

I'm going to examine all of these elements, but peripherally. First and foremost, this newsletter is a place to showcase neat-o foods I get at the surplus grocer, and blather on about how I incorporate them into my meals and routines. Jesse things.

Thanks for reading!

*sent on Monday, don't be pedantic!

Featured Items

This is my Haul avatar, zoomed in. Dainty ham! Lol. I've been shaving off little slices for potato roll breakfast sandwiches, but our first use was a doozie. (See next item.)

Shamefully perhaps, I had never tried Dal Makhani until I scored this simmer sauce at the surplus grocer. I stumbled on a fun recipe that combines country ham (dainty ham's cousin?) and collard greens in a Makhani preparation. I skipped the recipe's elaborate sauce preparation, as the India's Nature company (a Kroger import) pre-made that part for me. Easy weeknight dinner.