Distress in Pangnirtung as grocery store food ends up at dump

A grocery store manager in Pangnirtung, Nunavut, sent several freezers worth of meat, pizzas and other frozen foods to the local dump after a partial power outage in the community last week.

In a community where groceries are generally flown in and prices are often exorbitant, news of the Northern Store dump spread quickly and some people made their way to the dump to salvage what they could.

David Kilabuk went to see things for himself.

"Usually when we have a power outage and Northern loses function of their coolers or freezers … they have a big sale — you know 50 per cent off or whatever — and they get rid of the food that way," Kilabuk said.

"But there's nothing like that this time and everything looks like it was just thrown away right to the dumpster."

Kilabuk said it appeared the food would have been edible had it been sold at a discount.

"It just didn't seem right … to see people at the dump trying to get what they can. It's just not right. I could have been given out properly, neatly, cleanly."

'Concern for food safety': North West Company

Power was out in part of Pangnirtung for nearly 40 hours.

The power went out at 2 a.m. Thursday, and stayed out for nearly 40 hours. Fourteen homes and businesses were affected as high winds delayed Qulliq Energy's repairs to a broken power line.

Alex Yeo, president of Canadian retail with the North West Company, which owns the Northern Store in Pangnirtung, agreed with Kilabuk's sentiment.

"I know … it looks really terrible and I apologize for that, but it was really of a concern for food safety," Yeo said.

Yeo said the grocery store has a policy to contact local hamlet governments whenever unexpected circumstances means food might go to waste.

"What we should have done is contacted the hamlet to see if they may have wanted to take any product."

This really reinforced the importance of connecting with the community before deciding what to do with the food.- Alex Yeo, North West Company

In this case that call to the hamlet was never made. Yeo said that's because the store manager believed the food was likely unsafe by the time the manager learned it was going to take longer to restore power at the store than expected.

At that point, the decision was made to send the food to the dump instead of holding a sale or contacting the hamlet. Yeo said the manager didn't make a mistake in sending food the dump, if the food fell below Canadian Food Agency standards for safe consumption.

"The store is trying be very cautious in trying to protect food safety," he said.

If a mistake was made, Yeo said it was in not contacting the hamlet government sooner to see if anything could be done with the food.

Yeo couldn't say exactly how much food was sent to the dump because of the power outage, but he said the outage only affected freezers in the front of the store, and not the backroom coolers and freezers.

Photos and comments on social media suggest several families could have stocked their freezers with food found at the dump.

He added that the discarded frozen goods were mixed in with regular disposal items, like expired bread, which would have already been offered at a discount price before being disposed of.

"We really are committed to minimizing food waste," Yeo said.  "This really reinforced the importance of connecting with the community before deciding what to do with the food."