What you need to know about Grocery Store Salad bar and cooked Rotisserie Chicken from a Grocery Store

Grocery Store Economics

The answer lies in the curious economics of the full-service supermarket. For instance, many of the grocers in the Charlotte, NC market offers, among other amenities, a hot bar, a salad bar, a bakery, a full-service deli and an olive bar, because we live in one of the most competitive grocery store markets in the US, Charlotte, North Carolina, so why not. But how can it afford to put out all of this food fresh every day?

Even Whole Foods' notoriously inflated prices don't offset that level of production. Instead, much like hunters who strive to use every part of the animal, grocery stores attempt to sell every modicum of fresh food they stock. Produce past its prime is chopped up for the salad bar; meat that's overdue for sale is cooked up and sold hot. Some mega-grocers like Costco have dedicated rotisserie programs, but employees report that standard supermarkets routinely pop unsold chickens from the out of date section of the chicken refrigerated case straight to the oven. Do you remember the days before hot bars and rotisserie chicken tables? When the grocery store put Orange tags on meats that were going out of date and sold them at a reduced price? No more if your store has a hot bar !!!!! No more marked down vegetables if your grocery store has a salad bar……

Though supermarkets are loath to admit as much, likely for fear of turning off the squeamish, the former CEO of Trader Joe's cheerfully confirmed in a recent interview that meat and produce are recycled into prepared foods. And the vendor of one of the leading commercial rotisserie ovens offers, as a complement to its wares, "culinary support" that, among other things, aims to "develop programs to minimize food shrinkage and waste" and "improve production planning to optimize the amount of fresh food that is available during both peak and down times."

Rotisserie chickens aren't even the end of the line. When unsold, fresh meats, fruits and veggies that have passed their sell-by points can be "cooked up for in-store deli and salad counters before they spoil," per no less a source than a consultant to the supermarket industry.

By law, once the date on the package reaches the day on the calendar, the grocery store can cook it and the grocery store now has 3 additional days to get that product through its inventory and into the hands of the customer.