7:00 Am, Any Grocery/Any Town,
Manager opens doors to employees, who go to their departments and begin the waste rampage. The produce people look over the product on the shelves and remove any that has brown spots or leaves and any with soft spots or bruses. This goes out to the Dumpster out back. The Bread/Baked goods people remove any over date bread or danish if Store brand and not collected by the vendor. This goes into carts for a short time until someone tosses it in the dumpster as well as a few buckets of dirty floor mopping water allowed to sit overnight for just this purpose. The wrappers of the baked goods are cut with a casecutter so the filthy water gets into the packaging, rendering it unfit for even hogs to eat. The only meat product that gets saved is the fat trimmed away from the roast and steaks and saved in the cooler for Tallow Masters who then dump it in an uncooled garbage type truck and drive it around all day before taking it to be rendered into deep frying oil for the fast food joints or now days into Gasahol.
The Restaraunt nextdoor to the grocery, at closing the night before took the leftover food from the Buffet serving line or the kettles of to much of a dish they made and also dump it in special cans, if they have a contract with a farmer or military base, and set it out back to spoil in the hot sun until the farmer comes to get it to feed his hogs, which he then in turn sells back to the market chain or military mess Sgt. for fresh meat. Here at least the leftovers are fit to feed the hogs and are in a way recycled.
The Buffet restaraunts now days have rules forbidding them from placing the leftover food in clean contaners and allowing Food Kitchens for the homeless or needy to come pick up to fed to thse who can not afford a proper meal anyother way. If the food is properly chilled and stored overnight, a lot of hungry people could have a good hot meal at least once a day.
I and any other vendor that delivers to grocery stores has seen this every morning when he makes his rounds. Some even have taken the day old bread for their home use and some even get cheese that have been vented of outgased Nitrogen by the backdoor man. This is where the pack of cheese outgasses the nitrogen used to keep it fresh. A market can do this twice and reseal the package with tape. After that they have to get rid of it and some backdoor receiving clerks will allow vendors to have it. I used to trade bottles of Soda that the paper label had fallen off or was never stuck on for this cheese or danish. I knew what flavor the soda was and the backdoor man had a free cold drink with his own lunch and with some crackers I bought I had a good lunch on the road.
Some stores now take one or two batches of their Deli Fried Chicken and flash chill it and then can sell it to those on Food Stamps. You can not purchase prepared, hot meals with the current foodstamp card, but you can buy the same item if it is cold, so the smart stores are chilling part of the item for such sales. A quick few seconds in a microwave has it just as hot and crispy with little work.
Around here the local churches have grouped together and have a central distrobution center for these left over foods and give it on a first come, first served basis. They have a crew that goes and picks it up from the giver, a problem encountered before when the groups wanted the food but were to lasy to go get it. They also get gifts of uncooked food or cash to buy such items for the distrobution and they also take donations of current date canned foods and clothing and other needs.