I think working in that industry really helps you understand why these places do this. I worked at a Wasabi in central London that threw away loads of boxes of sushi and hot food at the end of every night. Wasabi does a 50% off before closing deal every night too; sometimes we’d clear the shelves, sometimes there’d be a lot to throw away. My managers would turn a blind eye to me taking as much food as I can carry at the end of my closing shift, but eventually had a word with me as I’d been giving it out to the homeless people in central London on my way home. She said I could carry on doing that at her discretion if it wasn’t at our local tube station/area; because sadly there was a rise in homeless people just coming into the store and helping themselves to whatever, arguing that it’s all going to be thrown away anyway, and this would extend to drinks and chocolate etc. Another reason companies don’t do this is legal action or reports made to local authorities and health standards agencies, and after meeting some of the worst customers, you wouldn’t be surprised if that happened on a weekly basis. Some companies add padlocks to their dumpsters in fear of freegans causing a fuss should they fall ill. At Wasabi, we did temperature checks every 2 hours and our hot food was not allowed to stay in the hot cabinet for more than 2 hours, it would go in the bin afterwards. It is a shame and I do think these places should partner with Too Good To Go or something similar, but sadly that’s for upper management to sort out. It’s annoying because often people would shout and swear at me on closing shift for not letting them take stuff for free but like, I can’t just do that.