One supermarket’s trash is another woman’s treasure.
Danish dumpster diver Sofie Juel-Andersen says she spends just $90 per year on groceries because she trawls through trash to find the rest of her food.
The 29-year-old forager, who runs a TikTok account under the handle @dumpsterdivingwsoff, spoke out about her unusual hobby in an interview with Southwest News Service on Thursday.
“So much good food is being wasted — and supermarkets know there are people out there who can’t afford to eat,” she declared.
Juel-Andersen was introduced to dumpster diving three years ago after her sister shared photos of her own forage featuring food from garbage cans in good condition.
“I was truly blown away by the amount of waste in these dumpsters,” Juel-Andersen declared.
Astonished by how much her sister scored, the Dane decided to dive right in — quite literally.
Initially, she only picked out fresh produce from the trash before she eventually began to add other items to her hauls.
“There would literally be two dumpsters round the back of a supermarket, filled with packaged food: whole chickens, candy, drinks. We once found 300 cans of Diet Coke still in their boxes,” she enthused.
Juel-Andersen is now fully committed to the quirky life hack and has no plans on stopping anytime soon, declaring: “Dumpster diving has become like a rescue mission for me.”
The thrifty diver keeps her missions strictly to the back of supermarkets because snagging food from restaurant trash cans or private dumpsters could be illegal in certain areas.
She says most of the food she finds was thrown out because it expired the previous day, had damaged packaging or looked deformed.
Juel-Andersen also added that she believes dumpster diving is everyday activism because “it reduces food pollution.”
“I once found 10 fully-packaged margarita pizzas, an avocado, a red pepper and some parsley, combined the ingredients and served it to my friends at a dinner party,” she excitedly stated.
However, as tasty as that pizza dish may have been, her friends thought the life hack was “super gross and just didn’t understand [it].”
And while some people scorn at the idea of digging through garbage, Juel-Andersen says she saves $400 per year on her supermarket bill.
“Dumpster diving allows me to work less. I only have a four-day workweek,” she declared. “It brings me so much financial and personal freedom.”
