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The world's first supermarket for expired food just opened

WeFood
Shoppers at the opening of WeFood. Mikkel Østergaard

Globally, grocery stores throw out more than 130 million pounds of food every year. And that's only a fraction of the 2.9 trillion pounds of food the world squanders annually.

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A new supermarket in Copenhagen wants to take a bite out of that food waste. WeFood, which opened in late February, only sells food that's past its expiration date or rejected by grocers for aesthetic imperfections — for 30 to 50% cheaper than normal market price.

A pound of apples, for example, may cost about $2.50 at a standard store, but it costs about $1.50 at WeFood.

People can often safely eat food after its "best by" date, WeFood's communication manager Jutta Weinkouff tells Tech Insider.

"It is legal to sell products that have passed this date, but the supermarkets do not. These items will be at WeFood," says Weinkouff, who also works with DanChurchAid, the Danish NGO that launched the store. 

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WeFood gathers its food from local markets, butchers, and produce importers. Much of the produce grown on farms never reaches tables, often because consumers reject bruised vegetables.

wefood grønt

Grocers also tend to stock more produce than they sell. The fruit and vegetables WeFood receives often comes from supermarkets' surplus stock, Weinkouff says.

"If there are a few bad fruits in a box, it is cheaper for the supermarkets just to throw it out than to spend time sorting the bad ones out," she says.

WeFood's volunteers go through these boxes and save the edible produce.

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In Denmark, roughly 1.5 billion pounds of edible produce go to landfills every year. Elsewhere, the picture is even more grim: the US wastes about six billion pounds of food a year.

The opening of the store follows the European Union's pledge to cut its food waste in half by 2025.

Denmark seems to have already made a head start — even without the market. The country's managed to reduce food waste by 25% in just the past five years.

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