[mendort]

In my region there is a group of charities that get food that would otherwise have been thrown out from local grocery stores. The handling of the food tends to be a bit careless so it's best to stay away from the things that really need to be refrigerated, but it was really helpful for me when I was unemployed. So I for one am glad that grocery stores have too much.

[k-mcgrady]

That's great but my point wasn't that they have too much. It was that they are throwing away perfectly good things with only surface/package damage. Giving them to a charity is a much better solution that throwing them in the trash.

[pbhjpbhj]

There's a national chain of bakeries that operate in our town. They don't offer any discounts at the end of the day because that means that people won't pay full price but will soak up the left overs instead.

Selling seconds/discount items reduces waste but [in poorer areas in particular it seems, and more so with food] it acts as competition against your own full price product. Companies would rather produce waste than damage profits.

Of course there's a fine line and in some areas of commerce price discrimination based on spoilt" goods will be worth while. In large-scale food production the costs of food relative to the selling price are usually low and the negative effects of food wastage aren't born directly by those who do it, it's mainly the same effects as commercial over-farming. Wasting food causes floods (!) but the local bakery don't get the insurance bill and so don't care.