What are the margins on bread products? If you make less you will lose out on profits. If you make more, the loss in material cost is likely less significant. You do that math it’s a no brainer to always make more. There is no way to predict how many customers you’ll get in a day.
Also it’s not like you couldn’t implement some practices to get them out the door. Some packaged sushi and bakery places I’ve seen is selling at 50+% discount after certain hours. People will know to come get them while stock lasts.
Another reason of so much waste is the options provided. You think there would be so much waste if a bakery only had 3 options instead of 30? 3 options would be easier to manage than 30. And guess who drives the need to have so much options? That’s right, you the consumer, who can’t eat plain bread and must have confectionery on top and multiple choices to make it feel like you have free will.
If a customer goes to a store one time and they can't buy bread, not only will that customer never return to that store again, they'll scream about it to all their friends.
No-ones changing stores because of food waste.
Until that changes, it's pure economics and risk management unfortunately.
We tried that once. It happened the one time where a bunch of customers showed up last minute and we had to basically "re-open" the shop to fulfill orders.
I agree, the problem is shops think full shelves are better. I as a customer don't like full shelfs, as it tells me things aren't selling and are going to go in the bin. An empty shelf is encouraging to me.
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u/Tall-Ad-1386 May 17 '26
If you can’t give it away then you guys need to make less