What Does Publix Do With Unsold Food?

The average supermarket carries around 32,000 individual products, all with some sort of shelf life, whether it is printed on the package or simply determined by appearance. That is a truly staggering number of items to manage, particularly when it comes to meat and produce or prepared foods where the window to sell them is quite short. What your local grocery store does with old produce and other unsaleable groceries certainly varies, but it is unfortunately not uncommon for stores to end up sending loads of food to the landfill. Publix, however, is not your average grocery store.

For over 15 years, the employee-owned Florida-based grocery chain Publix has been operating under what it calls its "Good Together" food donation program. The program works by taking foods from all over the store — deli, grocery, meat, produce, and bakery — that are no longer sellable but are still perfectly safe for consumption. Upon collecting these items, the chain delivers them to Feeding America food banks and other partner programs.

Publix joined the ranks of grocery chains that donate unsold food back in 2009, but its program is still growing in scope and scale. The chain regularly adds new items to the list of possible donations, ensuring as much food as possible reaches hungry mouths instead of finding its way to the landfill. In February 2025, Publix announced that it had donated 1 billion pounds of food through its Good Together program. Less than eight months later, however, an official press release reported that number had already increased by around 10%.

Despite the success of this Publix program, the chain may still have some work to do. Videos have appeared on social media of employees throwing away what appears to be perfectly good food, and alleged staff can be found online sharing that, despite the outward-facing anti-waste principals, things can look a bit dirtier behind the scenes. On Reddit, one supposed employee claims that the items selected for donations are quite limited. Things like broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and salads might make the donation cart, but most of it gets tossed. "Whoever we donate to only shows up to collect 50% of the time," the user added.

Fortunately, however, for every story like this one, there are several that paint the program in a more positive light. "We donate all the produce at my store that is not completely rotten to Feeding America," writes another Redditor in that same thread. "It is easier just to scan it all out under 'Dispose Of,' but our Store Manager insists that we donate most of it." Others report that, in some cases, even the food that is no longer considered "safe" for human consumption is saved and donated as animal feed.

The question of what gets donated by Publix may actually come down to the food banks working in the area. In places where the infrastructure is in place to take these donations and distribute them to those in need, the stores are happy to contribute. When there is no one to take the food, on the other hand, the employees don't have much choice but to toss it.