[rjh29]

Badly. Until a few years ago there was a franchise-wide rule that no food could be discounted even if it was close to expiry, so either the staff/owners bought them and ate it themselves, or it went in the dumpster.

Giving expired food to homeless people is not really a thing there either.

[ginko]

South Korea has extremely strict food waste laws and a pretty well developed systems of convenience stores. I wonder how things are handled there.

[skhr0680]

Convenience stores changed a lot around 2010 when they started real time tracking Every Damn Thing. Even in the mid 00s staff ate, took home, or gave away whatever they wanted to from the expired pile.

[ssl-3]

If that works (badly) in Japan, then why can't it work (just as badly) in the US?

What new impediment does the geography bring to the table?

[rjh29]

I was merely answering your question about how Japan deals with it (by trashing it, mostly). I guess the US could do that but unlike Japan, I'd expect people to break into the dumpsters and steal the food out of it. The trashing of food might offend people more in the US.

In terms of geography though, Japan has an extremely efficient and well developed cold chain and the country is pretty much a line from north to south. The US is clearly more spread out and significantly larger than Japan. That causes problems with both delivering the food to stores and (as other people have mentioned) efficiently moving waste to food banks.

[m0llusk]

People and customs related to food are not primarily geographic in nature. Japan is a strongly ordered society, not a roiling chaotic mess like the US. When people run into trouble they often hide their shame and starve themselves rather than beg for food. And it isn't like the network of food banks in the US was easy to set up or keep running.