Bent-and-dent Amish and Mennonite food stores are popular in hard times

LITITZ, Pa. — Standing torn and bent on a supermarket shelf, a 14.7-oz. box of Froot Loops, five months past its “best if used by” (or best by) date, goes for $2.49. Intact, it’s around $5.

In the freezer sits a pint of Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream, six months past its best by date, sporting a knuckle-sized indentation on the side, also priced at $2.49 (normally $6).

Nearby, a banged-up, 180-count plastic jar of Flintstone’s Gummy Vitamins looks like Fred lost a fight, and goes for $9.79, not the usual $20.

It’s not pretty. But it is cheap.

“Welcome to adventure shopping,” said Roy Martin, co-owner of Green Hills Farm Discount Grocer, a Mennonite-owned store in Lancaster County Amish country.

A so-called bent-and-dent grocery, Green Hills sells lots of crunched boxes and dinged cans at nearly half the price of traditional supermarkets. In similar stores, discounts run as high as 70% or more.

At a time when the U.S. Department of Agriculture says food prices are 10.1% higher than in 2022, Amish and Mennonite stores are attracting lots of shoppers, with Green Hills seeing 10% more customers since last year.

Ripped boxes are sellable as long as the inner packaging is sealed. Broken jars and leaking or bulging cans are thrown out. Best by coding isn’t seen as vitally important. It indicates when a product will be of best flavor or quality; it’s not a purchase or safety date, says the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic.

“Stores like this are a breath of fresh air when prices are out of sight,” said Greg Martin (no relation to Roy), president of Wyoming-based Banana Box Wholesale Grocery, which supplies damaged merchandise to places like Green Hills, literally in boxes that held bananas. It started in Kutztown in 2005.

“Ripped boxes of cereal are fine. Banged cans are good for years,” said Green Hills customer Makayla Minnich, 24, a Lititz bakery worker. “I live with my parents and siblings. I never buy full price.”

Sometimes called salvage stores, the groceries were created in the 1980s by Amish and Mennonite proprietors, who started out selling to their frugal “Plain People” brethren.

“They aren’t squeamish about what they eat, or whether it’s out of date,” said Erik Wesner, an author who’s lived with and written books about the Amish, and who runs a website called Amish America. “It’s a misconception the Amish eat healthy. For them, dinged-up is no big deal.”

Amish and Mennonite faiths are very similar. But while the Amish often travel by horse-drawn buggies and are prohibited from having electricity and phones in their homes, many Mennonites drive cars and use modern conveniences.

Typically, bent-and-dent merchandise is a casualty of commerce — products that fell off forklifts or storage shelves in distribution centers and warehouses.

Also, Roy Martin said, “Lots of truck accidents bring us goods. For us to have product, someone else has to lose.”

Along with battered items, the stores sell discontinued foods, less-than-pretty produce, surplus stock, and products close to best by dates.

“A value of the Mennonites is to not waste money,” said Green Hills customer Chris Cox, 66, who’s retired. “If we didn’t buy this food, it would be dumped, and that’s food waste.”

Aware that the USDA says America annually sends more than $150 billion of food to landfills, Roy Martin agreed: “We fight waste. We’re the ultimate green people.”

Different versions of salvage stores have been popping up, including in Philadelphia, said Lynn Ziobro, founder of BuySalvageFood.com. But most don’t appear to provide as many bent-and-dent items as Lancaster and Lebanon County stores, grocery experts say.

Beyond food, Green Hills sells over-the-counter medications three months past their expiration dates.

“The three months was chosen arbitrarily,” Roy Martin said. “It’s where our customers are comfortable.”

Since 1979, the U.S. Food and Drug administration has required that all prescription and over-the-counter medications carry an expiration date, by which the manufacturer can still guarantee the drug’s full potency and safety.

But later studies have shown it’s fine to use many drugs as much as 15 years after their expiration dates.

Baby food and infant formula are the only products for which the federal government requires dating. Along with formula, the state of Pennsylvania regulates dates on packages for shellfish, eggs, milk, and related products such as buttermilk, cream, sour cream, and half-and-half.

The best way to avoid spoiled food, the USDA says, is to determine whether it has an “off” odor, flavor, or texture. If it does, don’t eat it.

On a weekday outside BB’s Grocery Outlet in Quarryville, Lancaster County (”Bents, Bumps & Bunch of Bargains”), a horse harnessed to an Amish buggy is tied to a metal post next to a white BMW.

The store, now part of a “plain chain” with five locations in south-central Pennsylvania, is the best known bent-and-dent grocery in the county. People flock there from Philadelphia, distant parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.

BB’s was created in 1986 by Amish businessman Ben Beiler in a farm chicken house. It was a time when many of the Amish had to shift from farming to other work, according to historian Steven Nolt, an Amish expert at nearby Elizabethtown College:

“Farmland became too expensive, and open land is less available as need grows. The Amish average seven children per family, and the population [now 38,000] doubles every 20 years.”

Currently, around one-third of Amish households in Lancaster County are farming, Nolt said.

BB’s first cash register was run by a battery to adhere to Amish non-electricity rules. But now BB’s is co-owned by non-Amish and is on the grid, said the store general manager, who didn’t want his name used.

Unlike other stores, BB’s abhors publicity.

“In a good economy, we do great,” the general manager said. “In a bad one, it’s overwhelming. If everybody from Philadelphia comes here, how do we feed our neighbors?

“We have way too many customers.”

Much larger than Green Farms, BB’s offers similar bent-and-dent items at low prices.

“I save 200% on groceries,” said James Wilson, 83, of Lancaster, “by eating food five years out of date.”

Christine Craft, 76, of Bel Air, Md., drove 70 miles round-trip with her husband to visit BB’s.

She has no qualms about eating out-of-date food. “I’ve been shopping here for five years, and I’m still breathing. Last time, I bought a bent can of tomatoes, and guess what? I survived.”

“My rule is this: Even if it’s expired, if the price is reasonable, I’m going to buy it.”