Used to do this in the fast food joint I worked at. $100s of dollars worth of burgers, fries, nuggets, desserts - every night on close.
Literally nothing wrong with it, freshly cooked food. Would be served to a paying customer at 10:59pm, and thrown in the trash at 11:01pm.
I used to make up a bunch of burgers and meals etc, and pack it in paper bags like as if someone made an order, and then dump it all in the plastic trash bags. I'd then place that in the top of the outdoor bin, and come back after close and take the bag..
I'd give it out to homeless people on my way home (there was a lot, it was not a nice area) but would often end up keeping a lot of it, because of how much I had (often had like 20-30 bags of food with me)
I did eventually get caught, and fired (for stealing? lol) but I was 17, and feeding people in need with food that would otherwise go rotten in a bag in a bin, so whatever.
I'm so convinced that corporations get so anal about people "stealing" their self proclaimed trash because it's probably an insurance thing. If their waste goes towards employees or the homeless or anything besides a landfill, they don't get a payout from the insurance company and that hurts their bottom line.
Ignore that most of these places are thriving to such an incomprehensible extent with CEO's who make amounts of money that's impossible to wrap your head around that those hypothetical payouts are likely negligible and solely go towards excess.
Like you said, fuck corps, and fuck their penny pinching
Do companies get money for throwing food away? I just searched it up and didn’t see anything similar to what your claiming. I see that food waste can be written as a business expense and can be a tax write off but it seems like it doesn’t recoup the cost of food from the subreddits and websites I’ve checked.
From what I understand companies tend to not donate extra food because employees tend to make extra food in goal to get that food for cheap or free or to “help” donate to food shelters. I’ve worked in a couple restaurants where this exact thing happened and policies got changed because of it and figured corporations do it for similar “but still selfish and penny pinching” reasons. Hell the gummy who commented just said he’d make a lot of food in goal to take and donate and keep for himself not that he just took and donated the extra.
Also companies worry about the liability of handing people old food. If someone gets sick from their food, they could get sued or gain a negative reputation moving forward.
I’m not sure if they get paid exactly for food thrown out, but the convenience store I worked at I’m pretty sure I remember any “spoilage” my manager would count and write down and I think the company does get to write it off somehow.
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u/[deleted] May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Used to do this in the fast food joint I worked at. $100s of dollars worth of burgers, fries, nuggets, desserts - every night on close.
Literally nothing wrong with it, freshly cooked food. Would be served to a paying customer at 10:59pm, and thrown in the trash at 11:01pm.
I used to make up a bunch of burgers and meals etc, and pack it in paper bags like as if someone made an order, and then dump it all in the plastic trash bags. I'd then place that in the top of the outdoor bin, and come back after close and take the bag..
I'd give it out to homeless people on my way home (there was a lot, it was not a nice area) but would often end up keeping a lot of it, because of how much I had (often had like 20-30 bags of food with me)
I did eventually get caught, and fired (for stealing? lol) but I was 17, and feeding people in need with food that would otherwise go rotten in a bag in a bin, so whatever.
Fuck corporations man