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In my spare-time between 2004 and 2008, I helped my wife run her small shop selling organic groceries and ingredients. In some respects, running a shop was a steep learning curve. The snag with food is not that it's perishable, that's obvious, so much as most suppliers impose minimum quantities for ordering so it's a balancing act to gauge consumer demand. After the shop was opened, we were interviewed on the local BBC radio during which I said it was our policy, a week or so before sell-by or use-by dates to give away free of charge all surplus unsold food/groceries to the local hospital. The interviewer asked how long we'd be doing that, to which I said hopefully not for long! Once we got the formula right, how much to order in stock vs cusumer-demand, we found it was usually cheaper to run out of some items and upset an occasional customer rather than over-stock. We got round the regular customer upset by telling them what we were doing and suggesting they bought sooner than later, and if they had no room at home to store items provided the customer paid up front we'd keep the items for them until they were needed. That arrangement was very popular: it meant the customer could be sure of getting the item whenever they wanted it.

The challenge, I imagine, for the large companies is how to get that balancing act right without upsetting the customer. At present, they are probably over-stocking partly to drive down prices for the customer (and boost their own margins); and to maintain stock levels at all times. Everyone is being urged to be more resourceful. Whilst there is goodwill is giving away food for free, it might be cheaper to reduce stock levels and risk the occasional upset customer. Regular customers could be notified of deliveries and a similar arrangement as we initiated done.