That does happen actually, I found out, some places like M&S will give owt they have left over that's still edible to such places,
but as a lot of these places come with strings attached (a bit of bible bashing or moralising about drugs and such) a lot of homeless folks don't like them.

But a well known pasty shop in York that also sold sarnies and such would reduce stuff to half price at 5pm and then in the last ten minutes as they were closing just walk out and pass out a few freebies to anyone who wanted them, and they seemed to enjoy it and it put a few smiles on folks' faces.
( ..wil, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 11:47, 1 reply)

Freebies
I think there are still places that will do this. My old head of sixth form used to go and collect all the food from the bakery that hadn't sold at the end of the day and travel around the city giving it to the homeless.

I also used to be the person reducing the produce at the end of the day. It is still done in all of the supermarkets I live near. And not too much gets thrown out. But I guess there are still the few bits that do that can't get sold (because the shops would get their asses sued for selling out of date food) that could be put to better use. It just needs people to do it.

Out of interest, do you ask around food shops to see if they will let you give out their excess?
( El Lazarus is calm now, Ish,, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 15:49, closed)