Why Did Fred Meyer Throw Out Thousands of Pounds of Food? A conflict broke out between grocery store employees and the people who were salvaging food, to the point where a manager called the police A dumpster full of food outside the Hollywood Fred Meyer | On Tuesday, February 16, grocery workers and food rights activists stood off over the fate of multiple dumpsters full of food. After a Hollywood neighborhood grocery store threw out a massive amount of groceries following a power outage, activists attempted to save the food to redistribute it; instead, employees called the police, and a fierce argument has developed online surrounding the potential risk to vulnerable communities — either by choosing to distribute the food, or by choosing not to.