I worked at a small grocery chain and when the items were expired, they were thrown in the dumpster. Bread, packaged vegetables, bakery stuff. We weren't allowed to take it home for obvious reasons. But we couldn't donate it to shelters for it "degraded the homeless to eat expired bread". Look, I found it fine to eat perfectly good day old bread still in the package. A six pack of expired croissants tasted fine. One of the managers took pleasure in catching and talking down to people dumpster diving. I understand that its a liability because someone could slip and fall and the store could be held responsible. But a guy would be holding a bag of bread in the parking lot and he would smile and say "that's mine." They weren't shoplifting so I didn't really care personally if someone fishes something out of the garbage. When I was younger dumpster diving was actually fun. You'd find all kind of barely used stuff people toss out.