It's not incumbent on you to manage the supply chain. The people who are earning profits from servicing that chain have that responsibility. The entire system is best served if you operate with your _own_ best interests in mind.
I am smart enough to know that the food with expiration dates gets taken off the shelf and then some human being has to move it somewhere else if I don't take it. How does that not serve the system? I like being efficient and filling in gaps where it doesn't matter. Freshness differentials on shelves isn't worth it for me or the business.
Sure, but selecting the oldest groceries on the shelf is not a factor, as it's not your efficiency you're improving.
> filling in gaps where it doesn't matter.
If the store is arranging its stock orders incorrectly then they should fix that. They have a much better opportunity to have impacts here than your gap filling ever will.
Why don't they actually do this then? Because the 2% loss on waste can't be made up by the 5% additional cost of labor to "right size" the order perfectly every time.
Finally it's only waste because we don't manage these outputs correctly and have a single dumpster where all "garbage" goes. Food recycling and city compost programs could close the rest of the loop far more efficiently than any of this.
> Freshness differentials on shelves isn't worth it for me or the business.
No, it's just the entire rest of the supply chain.
In the case of buttermilk, it only starts to get a good flavor some time after the date on the carton. So I will often pick the oldest one (which is easy, be cause they put the older cartons toward the front).
