Mildly Infuriating

We make food "from scratch" on a regular basis.

We've found a few different sources for fats. I'll focus on the pork-fat ones.

The most common source is to just collect fat any time we make pork things. The advantage is that it's cheap and easy; just let it cool and add it to a jar in the fridge. The disadvantage is that it will have a lot of other flavors (especially salt).

Sometimes we just by processed lard. That's basically the opposite end of the spectrum. It's very pure and has no flavor besides the fat itself.

Often we'll wet render our own fat. Traditionally that would be the trimmings off of other cuts. Unless you're butchering a pig (or have bought into a fractional pig through something like a CSA) those bits usually aren't available. Typically we'll just buy cuts that are very high in fat. For pork, that would be pork belly. We'll just buy an uncut slab and wet-render it. Trim any meat you want to cook with (belly is the part that bacon is made of) throw the rest in a pot of water an simmer it for a few hours. The fat layer that collects on top is almost pure lard.

We've also found that duck fat is a great substitute for lard. It has a similar smoke point to lard (slightly higher). It tastes different from lard but it's also good enough that the flavor itself will improve meals. Duck breasts are about 50% fat if you buy them with skins. You can also buy duck fat on its own.

What you are told on the phone and what will actually happen in the store are two completely different things.

I hear you, I hear you and here's my two stories:

Once at Large Chain Supermarket I found some lamb chops on special. Took them to the self serve checkouts but the item didn't scan. The team member had a look and said, it's because it's past its expiry date ( the date was the day before). The meat was in perfect condition though, no dark spots or dry edges or any discoloration. So I asked if I could take it for free, and she said no, and she put it in the trash bin right next to the checkout.

Now I'm not blaming her since I understand that's what she has to say since it's her job, and I also understand the supermarket would be liable if they sold me something that caused me food poisoning. But I believe the real motivation is profits. It would be all to easy to have a law saying supermarkets are not liable for expired items if they are taken for free; but if that was the case most people would be waiting for the nearly expired items and sales would plummet. I think this is messed up, I don't know. I have no idea about what do supermarkets do with fresh nearly expired food but I have the naive hope they at least use some for their bakery/rotisserie section.

(I took the meat out of the bin after paying for my other groceries so I did, in the end, get it for free. And it was delicious)

The other story happened while working for Well Known Retailer. I had to grab a wheelie cart/trolley or whatever they're called, to put stock on the floor. But the only cart left was full with old merchandise. So the manager led us to where the big dumpster bins were, and said, okay help me chuck these out. And she started throwing away all these very expensive scented candles in perfect condition with no other flaw than being old. I'm talking about $30 - $50 candles. I asked if I could take some for free, and she said we weren't allowed. I asked about buying them with a discount, and she said that was also not allowed because the items weren't even part of the inventory anymore. So we just trashed roughly $1500 worth of merchandise. It's just messed, those could have gone to a Salvation Army store or something instead of getting dumped (and broken in the process).

I always figured this was for health and safety reasons

If it's so much effort to try and get fat trimmings from butchers, why not just buy a block of lard from the supermarket?

Not sure if they still exist, but look for a butcher or maybe a deli. Chain stores have no humanity left.

unfortunately, a lot of the time they really don't have a choice at the store level. I know it's not the most helpful suggestion, but maybe reaching out to corporate to let them know there are people who want that could help. good luck on your lard quest.

Unfortunately most local managers don’t actually have the ability to negotiate. Their job is to administer the machine, and avoid getting sued.

It sucks because it often means they can’t make decisions even if they would make the store more money.

I worked at a big box store for a while and my department was turning away customers simply because we couldn’t serve them. Hiring more help would have brought in revenue far beyond their wages, but my stores hands were tied by centralized corporate policy that dictated how many people they could hire.

I had like $500k in the sales pipeline. I had an excellent conversion rate on the customers I actually had time to work with. But I was forced to spend my time stocking shelves and cleaning while my customers called in frustrated why I wasn’t helping them.

People say it’s all about profit but that’s not actually true. It’s about maximizing the ability of the central corporate office to model and predict the money flows. I wish it were all about profit.

I’ve worked for startups and other small locally-owned businesses and it’s so great to see the flexibility they have. Working for a huge corporation sucked because it was like twelve layers of command structure to get to someone who could make a decision.

Not an answer for you right now, but I just make lard whenever we get a big hunk of pork, I get the one with a bone and skin cut the skin & fat off and render it and it's quite a project but makes enough for my purposes though the year, I don't use it often. I wouldn't expect a shop to do that for me for any amount I'd be willing to pay!

It's a trade off, if you want old school butcher store service, you're gonna pay old school butcher store specialty pricing (which is usually at least double what you're going to pay for the same cut in a supermarket)

In the southeastern US, we have plenty of fatback in stores, among other odds and ends. The employees laughed when I had to ask what it was.

Try a butcher shop or ethnic grocery store with a meat counter.

Separating the trimmings from the rest of the waste isn't the only thing that requires effort. I presume that the management doesn't want to give ordinary employees the authority to just give stuff away, which makes sense. Even if it isn't a problem in this specific case, it can be a problem because employees won't always be knowledgeable or honest. Having management review what is being given away involves overhead, and deciding how much to charge you because of that overhead involves more overhead. I probably wouldn't bother with all that if I ran the supermarket unless I really hated throwing things out, because I would assume you won't be willing to pay enough to make it worth my time.

They made this bullshit illegal in New York. All food waste has to be donated to the city. They even come pick it up. You can be fined extremely heavily for throwing edible food away. This applies for restaurants, grocery stores, etc.