# Do They Sell Day Old Bread and Cakes In Your Area **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2008, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772 "2008-08-21T05:43:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/21 "2008-08-21T20:23:28Z")
[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest] I work in the bakery department of a MegaHell. Day olds are marked down the night before they are about to hit their sell-by date ( not expiration date, sell by. Items still have a good many days left on them.) If they do not sell, they are scanned for throw away and tossed in the garbage. [/QUOTE] Same thing at Former Employer. At one store we did donate the day olds pulled on the weekends for a church-sponsored food pantry, but at the other stores, scanning/tossing was the norm. > [@](#): > > There have been occaisions where I have personally tossed $400 worth of still very usable goods into a huge compactor. _nods_ I was told once that it’s cheaper for the store to take the loss on them than it was to either have a day-old rack or donate them. > [@](#): > > The reason it isn’t given to charity is because sometime ago ( dunno when) when the stuff was given to local charities there were two problems. The local charities sometimes were late in picking up stuff and as a handler of food, we cannot hold onto something outdated like that for an extra day or two. The second, and it is more frivolous, but the Megastore can be sued if someone at X Charity chips a tooth or something less drastic on a day old. So our megahell chain stopped the practice. This happened at Former Employer when I was a PT clerk. One of my duties was to scan/pack up everything for donation. One morning I was told just to scan/toss something like 4-5 carriages of perfectly good product. I was too shocked to say anything. Current Employer donates everything. If the day old isn’t picked up by 10AM, it heads for the compactor. Customers, by and large, are happy that it’s donated, but we have a few who still simmer and vent about us not having a day-old rack. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/22 "2008-08-21T20:30:36Z")
We have a Hostess outlet nearby that I frequent. The local Wal Mart has the aforementioned “rolling rack” where they sell baked goods that are near their expiry date. My favorite local supermarket even does a similar deal with meats. In the meat case, I look for steaks, chops, chicken, everything, with yellow tags. Those tags mean the meats are approaching their “sell-by” dates and are marked down. One time, I was in the store just as the store employee was slapping the yellow tags on stuff. I _really_ cleaned up that day! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/23 "2008-08-21T21:50:55Z")
You can get some great bargains in the ‘day old cream cake’ section of my local bakery, if you’re not proud or fussy. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/24 "2008-08-22T05:25:49Z")
[QUOTE=Santo Rugger] Considering they make a LOT of sales, perhaps they donate up to the limit and then sell the rest? [/QUOTE] A lot of the breads and snack pastries at the grocery are there on consignment. The BunnyBread, Hostess, Little Debbie, Pepperidge Farm, whatever delivery guy comes in on a daily or several times a week basis and re-stocks the racks, pulls the stuff that will be out of date before the next delivery and takes them back to the warehouse where they go to the Bakery Thrift StoresTM. The store is charged for the inventory sold and a re-stocking fee. Most of the time, the distributor pays the store a fee for placement as well (you want a good slot to stock the RingDings? $$$ or we place the Twinkies there). So in short, for baked goods, most of the time, they are not the store’s inventory to donate or put on the day old rack. This goes for chips and other bagged snacks too. This does differ for in-house baked goods. ---
**Author:** ![jellyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@jellyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jellyblue)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/25 "2008-08-22T07:56:50Z")
A local coffeehouse wraps day-old scones, muffins, etc. in cling film and sells them at a discount under a sign that says: “Born Yesterday”. I just think that’s so cute for some reason! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/26 "2008-08-22T13:10:46Z")
[QUOTE=kittenblue] Does she really leave her car unlocked in the parking lot? Where can you do that these days? [/QUOTE] heh, I never thought about that. In my current location, I have _never_ locked my vehicle at work or home, neither do any of my employees. When I go tho the mall, I would probably lock my car, but it is a soft-top so a thief just has to undo velcro to get in, so why bother? ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/27 "2008-08-22T13:42:07Z")
I am still in the habit of locking my car since it’s relatively new, but there’s really no reason to here, at work or at home. I’ve finally gotten out of the city habit of locking my front door, and it’s much more convenient to let myself in if I am carrying anything. ---
**Author:** ![nd\_n8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/439d5e/32.png) [@nd\_n8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nd_n8)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/28 "2008-08-22T14:26:48Z")
[QUOTE=Student Driver] [hijack]Do you live near Greenwood, or was that just a passing-through? I live like a bloc or three away from that store.[/hijack] [/QUOTE] Technicaly passing through, I work in Indy but live in Whiteland. ---
**Author:** ![Caractacus\_Pott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Caractacus\_Pott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caractacus_Pott)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772/29 "2008-08-23T11:13:31Z")
[QUOTE=norinew] My favorite local supermarket even does a similar deal with meats. In the meat case, I look for steaks, chops, chicken, everything, with yellow tags. Those tags mean the meats are approaching their “sell-by” dates and are marked down. One time, I was in the store just as the store employee was slapping the yellow tags on stuff. I _really_ cleaned up that day! 🆒 [/QUOTE] Norine, move to Japan! You’d be in hog heaven. Every night at about the same time, clerks go throughout the store and slap yellow tags on meat, bread, and prepared foods. Breads usually were fairly early, like 6pm. This was on every piece of store-baked breads, which is about 90% of what they sold. If you wait until 9pm you get the real savings when the savings go to about 30%. What surprised me is that there wasn’t a big rush of customers to get these bargains. I don’t recall seeing quantities of day old bread for sale at the big grocery stores (Tesco, Waitrose) here in England, but Tesco may have a loaf or two on the refrigerated clearance shelf with the old packaged meats, yogurts, and refrigerated meals. Then again, lazy customers may have abandoned them there. I don’t go down that aisle very often. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-sell-day-old-bread-and-cakes-in-your-area/460772.md?page=1)