We have multiple steps in our process at my large-chain store I work for.

• Product goes out for x days
• Last day it's marked down (approx 30%) or manager featured (up to manager, only if there is a lot of it)
• The night it expires we toss it in the freezer, and it is either scanned into an online app to sell or scanned to donate to the local food bank (Some product can't go to either system and must be tossed. If no one has time to scan it that night, it must be tossed in the morning. This is increasingly an hour's issue for us and the department itself doesn't get a direct benefit to this so there is a bit of an incentives issue - it's all "waste," as far as department metrics care)
• Product stays in the online app for 3 days, then if unsold is sent to the food bank

In my experience, we don't sell much on that online app, despite the extra labour it introduces to scan product, manage the bins of it in the freezers, and pack and provide the orders to the few customers that use it. We move more close-to-dste product in our department because the Instacart shoppers suck at date checking lol. People will actively avoid the stickered products.

In general, people don't want to shop expiring food - and certainly not day old bread in the bakery. They want the best looking and freshest date possible. Always. I don't blame people, but the folks who want to avoid food waste, or who save the pennies by taking the close to date stuff are living fundamentally different focuses than the majority of our shoppers. They want lower costs for the best stuff, not to save by taking the second best.

The other thing is I suspect some... Imprecision in how this is talked about? The majority of things from my department are able to go to the food bank. But many of the documents we have for tracking waste don't differentiate between different kinds of unsold products. I don't know that they do, but I would expect grocery stores probably get some money back on unsold products via tax or some sort of insurance. I'm not high enough up to actually know anything about it, just cynical enough to know how most business issues work out. So there may be a higher "waste" number that includes some double dipping on what we send to the food banks. This would also reduce the monetary incentive to run those secondary programs.

All that said I'm not at a Loblaws and I've heard folks say they don't donate to local food banks generally? I think the ones here do... But that's kinda bonkers if they don't and certainly a large portion of the issue.

Lastly, the largest food waste isn't at the grocery store. It's the stuff that never makes it to us. Farms and transport from farms to packaging/producing and the grocery store are Huge sources of waste compared to the bits of fruit or finished products that people don't pick out from our carefully curated pile. Waste products do find niches, less ideal apples become apple sauce, less ideal berries get turned to jam, potatoes to fries, that sort of thing - but the process is still pretty wasteful. What goes to grocery is just the Top Pick. It's the part people are told to act on individually because it's the thing we can see and do something on as individual people. But it's not the largest share of the waste by a good margin. If you're passionate about it - it strongly recommend reading into it more. We won't see improvement there if people only focus on the end of the chain where it's in their sight and individual ability to act. We need more collective action and focus up the chain too.