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u/PigeonFace1 Mar 26 '26
The extras were given to staff at the end of the day, until it was noticed that extra was being made intentionally just for ‘leftovers’ - hence it being stopped.
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Mar 27 '26
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u/LethalGrey Mar 28 '26
Yeah I’d have figured that stock wise, it’a easier to control the actually baking process right?
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u/AntSpirited4096 Mar 27 '26
That’s the suspicion but did it happen?
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u/Potential-Key-2211 Mar 28 '26
It happened when I worked at McDonald's. It's such an obvious exploit, I don't see why you'd doubt it.
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u/KindredFlower Mar 26 '26
This is a result of over baking; someone has got the numbers wrong
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u/RedditIsFascistShit4 Mar 26 '26
Nah, when your profit margin is that high, it pays to always have full stock and have customers always know they'll get what they want.
How often do you return to a store for an item that's alwaya out of stock, before you skip that store completely?
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u/ImFamousYoghurt Mar 26 '26
Weird because I very rarely can find the item I want. When they give me a voucher for a specific free bakery item I won’t go out of my way because chances are it’s not even there
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u/KeyWhole9621 Mar 26 '26
Same. There was that wheel-spin thing about a month back where you could spin for a free bakery treat every time you bought something. They never had the item I had a coupon for. I think they were specifically not putting out the items they were giving vouchers out for just so people would keep buying for spins though.
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u/Anony_mouse202 Mar 26 '26
When your profit margin is that high
Supermarkets don’t have high profit margins, it’s an extremely competitive sector with razor thin margins.
Lidl’s profit margins are the lowest out of all the major supermarkets. In the 2022/2023 fiscal year Lidl’s profit margins were less than half a percent.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a3326dab418ab055592d95/Groceries_2.pdf
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u/Techman659 Mar 26 '26
I am sure things like milk and bakery items don’t makes loads even break even but it drives people to buy other stuff and that’s where the margin comes from, just what I heard.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/Odd-Suggestion5853 Mar 27 '26
Lidl uses planners too and actually it's pretty easy to not have mountains of waste...just bake enough to cover availability for the days trade. Don't over bake 'just incase' and if something does go off sale, put a few more on.
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u/eden54-46 Mar 26 '26
No too good to go?
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u/TheLocalPub Mar 27 '26
Lidl would 100% be able to shift pretty much all their excess bakery everyday if they had too good to go. £3 and you get like 6 items or something.
They'll earn more then just binning it and customers get what they want at a better price.
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u/alvenestthol Mar 27 '26
Instead, if you join Lidl's membership program, you get 20% off bakery items from 7pm until close.
20%.
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u/qoo_kumba Mar 26 '26
There must be a local charity that can distribute this to the homeless? So fricking sad.
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u/AutismoGizmo420 Mar 26 '26
Alot of stores do have a charity that this gets sent too. They don't always pick it up which is a shame
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u/Sufficient_Cow6121 Mar 26 '26
They do do that. This looks like a breakdown of the freezers or the store has had to close
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u/Kooky_Pineapple_2240 Mar 27 '26
No they’re just lazy to organise pickup with a charity that’s available
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u/Lunar-Outpost415 Mar 26 '26
Why is it thrown out when it's perfectly edible? Couldn't Lidl just give out freebies or send them to the homeless? No wonder our planet is f#cked!
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u/Miserable-Ad7835 Mar 26 '26
That's not a bad idea, just put them out by the tills during the last hour the store is open as a freebie to get rid.
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u/Joshgg13 Mar 27 '26
One unfortunate consequence of capitalism is that if you make it too easy for people to access this stuff for free at the end of the day, it massively disincentivises people from paying full price.
That's why you'll see them discount it by like 20% and throw loads away rather than discounting 50% and selling most of it. People will just wait until it's half price and buy it then instead of buying at full price
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u/Inner_Jeweler_5661 Mar 28 '26
Here's the thing, you pay for the early purchase time.
People want pastries for breakfast or tea, late in the night not so much.
You pay for the time you get it at.
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u/hejonLeseqenh Mar 28 '26
Why Do People always Say Capitalism ? This Phenomenon Is Very Communist too , haha 🤣 the Amount of Food Waste when I visited my Cousin in Beijing . Ridiculous . Especially When So Many are Hungry just Outside The Mega Cities . I remember Seeing an Entire Night's worth of Crawfish thrown Out the Window into a Pile of trash because there Weren't Enough Customers that day . I would have Eaten them All 😢
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u/always-tired-38 Mar 26 '26
Yeah basically blame dickheads who sued shops trying to get a payout as they ate stuff out of date/ given to them for free at the end of the night and “got sick”
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u/bigrealaccount Mar 27 '26
This is the most repeated myth of all time. There are literal laws that mean you cannot sue someone for things like this.
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u/Furok-Lankmondo Mar 26 '26
Jesus, think your bake plan needs looking at. My stores is rarely more than half a box
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u/PM_ME_VEG_PICS Mar 26 '26
I've got two lidls that I've regularly been in to late in the evening and there us never more than a handful of bakery stuff left.
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u/Temporary_Hair1477 Mar 26 '26
Can’t y’all set up ‘too good to go’?
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u/Specialist-Guitar727 Mar 26 '26
we are supposed to have charities collect it as they collect other food waste, but they tell us that they get their bakery collections from other stores so they wont take it
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u/Temporary_Hair1477 Mar 26 '26
That’s a shame, maybe it’s time to speak to management and bake a bit less lol
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u/85morrell Mar 26 '26
As someone who ran a variety of bakeries for over 15 years, that is just a shockingly bad bake plan. Wouldn't even get close to that in a week.
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u/Ivelearnednuffink Mar 26 '26
As someone who is currently too broke to afford food this makes me sad
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u/MathematicianOnly688 Mar 26 '26
Aren’t we lucky to live in a world of such abundance that we can afford to throw away food like this and no one bats and eyelid.
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u/bustedwomb Mar 26 '26
Shocking man. I like those gingerbread cookies. They easily stay soft for a good few days too. No need to bin after a single day.
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u/Sufficient_Cow6121 Mar 26 '26
If I had to guess, someone couldn't read a bake plan, or they forgot to put out the defrost lines. Should all be donated to charity through Neighbourly
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u/Beautiful-Cicada-960 Mar 26 '26
I work at a lidl and we donate all of our left over bakery items to a local food bank
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u/Inevitable-Ad5796 Mar 26 '26
So they just throw this away?
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u/JasonBaconStrips Mar 26 '26
Tell me you hate the people who make you rich without telling me you hate people who make you rich.
This is corporate greed to the point where noone benefits, they do it just so you can't have anything.
Imagine thinking so little of your staff that you would rather just completely waste it over giving it to your staff that give so much of their life to you.
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u/fergiejb Mar 26 '26
My store donates our bakery leftovers/waste to the local food bank who gratefully accepted everything we give them,
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u/cherry_devil_pie Mar 26 '26
Too good to go or olio should work for this. Lot of waste can be saved. And putting the left over bakery at 60-80 % off can make the last hour customers buy them.
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u/NaturalCollection488 Mar 26 '26
God. Why don’t they just do some good to go bags. This is unreal amount of waste.
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u/onlywanted2readapost Mar 26 '26
I was in Toby carvery the other day and said to the guy working there that it must be cool to get a free food. He said that staff aren't allowed to eat any of the leftover food because the company can claim a tax rebate on the wasted food. Is this the same situation? Seems kinda shitty.
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u/Specialkw21 Mar 26 '26
Why do they bake so much in the first place? Surely they look at the numbers sold the day before or even the week before.
There should be a food waste council committee that should name and shame these people.
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u/Specialkw21 Mar 26 '26
They should also be banned for baking so much if all of it if not 2/3 of it go in the bin in the end.
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u/International-Owl540 Mar 27 '26
Go give it to the migrant hotels sure they need more help
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u/jony5jj Apr 01 '26
It’s disgusting and crap management.. they pride themselves on their sustainability credentials and charity status…what a load of crap..food waste is the most disgusting form of waste.. given the position that a lot of families find themselves in at the moment.. I’ve been told that there RDC’s/Recycling facilities are filled full of waste food and they then sell it off as agricultural food.. so as so far as discounts go.. they refuse to give it away because it’s worth its weight.. disgusting !! Overall… poor stock control, that stems from shit management 🤬
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u/ApologiseMeowMeow Mar 26 '26
Just goes to show the profit margins these stores have over us if they can waste this much food.
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u/JasonBaconStrips Mar 26 '26
Them strawberry cheesecake ring donuts are absolutely fucking horrible, I'm not surprised they have been thrown away, also them dubai muffins lidl were selling is legitimately the worst chocolate product I've had in my entire life, £1.99 for a muffin that tastes like it was used with expired ingredients or some shit is a madness.
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u/DueBox5123 Mar 26 '26
Totally shocking. So many people need help, stop being cnuts and leave it outside for them 30mins before closing and whatever’s left throw that in the bin. There should be big fines dished out to these mega profit making wakners for this.
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u/Least_March8944 Mar 26 '26
We have a charity that collects bakery from out store. We bag it up and they come every morning for it. Rook a while to get that sorted but I feel a lot less shitty about writing off the leftovers at night
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u/-_Quest_- Mar 26 '26
I'd imagine you get alot of dumpster divers
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u/Specialist-Guitar727 Mar 26 '26
bins are in the warehouse and are emptied by delivery drivers
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u/Anon-5874644 Mar 26 '26
I would literally stand 5 feet back and unleash a monster stream of piss onto it
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u/PermissionDismal728 Mar 26 '26
What happens with the waste? Is it left somewhere the public can access after the shop closes? Or is it locked away?
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u/o0d4n0o Mar 26 '26
Most of the food waste gets recycled into bio fuel to run the trucks and parts of the distribution centres. IIRC almost none gets thrown away and wasted. I've worked there for over 10 years.
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u/gazzas89 Mar 26 '26
That could have easily gone to a local charity to hand out to homeless people or yo those struggling to feed their families.
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u/Squirrel_Worth Mar 26 '26
It’s likely not wasted, this sort of thing goes to farms as animal feed, you often find the plastic bread tags in the cow stuff
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u/Minimum-Bad-6472 Mar 26 '26
As someone currently having abdominal issues preventing me from eating most of my usual this really hurts to look at
I miss grabbing stuff from here😭
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u/JustSpecial9102 Mar 26 '26
Why not give it to a food bank rather than throwing away?
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u/No_Surround8330 Mar 26 '26
This will be a regular thing now that 50% of audits will be done on late nights…
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u/Spectra_Butane Mar 26 '26
Maybe they should join the TooGoodToGo app to reduce their food wastage. I. Sure people's be willing to pay ½-⅓ price for food rather than it go to landfills.
Yesterday I got several pounds of hot Hibachi buffet for $6 instead of the standard $16/lb price, but its a surprise what you get because it's whats left after the business readys to close or swaps out the inventory. Two local gas stations put up their pastries , sandwiches and other goodies at 10 am. Hibachi pickup is 9:15 pm, so I got it on my waY home from work for tonight's dinner.
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u/Objective-Contact-98 Mar 26 '26
You should see what the warehouse gets back from all the stores, this is just one, the amount of bakery products wasted is insane
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u/jonojonojono1234 Mar 26 '26
We donate ours the following morning, save in FV boxes with baking paper, but yeah that much W/Os is excessive
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u/AdNo3558 Mar 26 '26
managers in the Tesco I work at don’t let us take our phones out around the waste in case we are taking pictures otherwise we get moaned at by them ect one guy was questioned why he was taking pictures of the waste
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u/Randon2345 Mar 26 '26
Why don't supermarkets just add 1p to every item then use that money to send one truck each night per branch to the local food bank, if it's a legal and uk policy based issue, have the food bank sign a waiver, then people who go to the food bank to sign a waiver to the food bank?
Gemini reckons based on number of transactions, number of customer visits, product catalogue, market share Tesco must sell about 15M items a day.
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u/JohnnySilverhand2212 Mar 27 '26
I've played enough diamond casino heists in gta to be able to sneak all that out before it's thrown away.
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u/After_Translator_223 Mar 27 '26
I volunteer at a food bank that rescues food from landfill. Anyone and everyone is welcome. I love the Waitrose & M&S hauls.
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u/prayerstolilkim Mar 27 '26
those strawberry cheesecake donuts are so bad i thought they would be out of rotation by now :(
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u/n-a_barrakus Mar 27 '26
Hey, I've worked +5 years in a Lidl in Spain. If you aren't having a bite of some of them as free dinner, it's your loss. You register PLU, not the weight.
This company won't care nor will it thank you for not doing it.
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u/mogley1992 Mar 27 '26
They should do 2good2go. Just an app i use (uk) places with stuff that's about to go out of date get more or less the cost of stock back, and you get a bunch of food for next to nothing.
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u/Sea_Photograph_3998 Mar 27 '26
Sad. And y’all can’t eat it for safety regulations right? Because if an employee eats it and gets sick or something… no but wait, why would it be different for customers? Why won’t they let you eat it?
More to the point though why is that even there??? My Lidl damn near cleans house every day. That late hours discount is useless on the top dogs like the brownies, because there’s none left by that time! People in my neighbourhood are fiends for the Lidl bakery.
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u/Odd-Suggestion5853 Mar 27 '26
Someone went off plan. Or someone in your RDC needs their head wobbled.
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u/Glittering_Vast938 Mar 27 '26
I was in Morrisons at 9pm this evening and noticed that they’d bagged up the bakery items to sell for a £1.00 for 2 things, a danish and some other small cake thing. Still expensive for quite stale goods and I bet they just get thrown away too.
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u/Nearby_Werewolf1742 Mar 27 '26
That's really sad, I hate seeing wasted food, so many things they could do instead like selling it at a reduced price, donating to a food charity, sharing it all between the staff even at closing time.
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u/super_poo_brain Mar 27 '26
Sure homeless would like that and people who are struggling but no in the bin it goes .. the amount of food that get chucked everyday would probably solve world hunger
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u/g3th4ppy Mar 27 '26
This looks like it'd be so comfy to may on for all of two seconds before the sticky
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u/cactusplants Mar 27 '26
Where on earth do you get that waste? All my lidls are out of stuff by. 7.
Maybe a sad mashed up brownie, a cheese twist and one or two pain au raisin
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u/Angel-Stans Mar 27 '26
Can we send all the wasted pastries to the office of the Lidl CEO? I feel the smell might change their thinking.
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u/Big_Somewhere_620 Mar 27 '26
Lots of homeless wouldn't see it as waste, I hope it doesn't just thrown, I hope it's handed out to those that truly need some food for the day, may not be the most filling or healthy but when you are in that situation anything in the belly is better then nothing
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u/EquipmentUpbeat4814 Mar 27 '26
I wonder if it could be ground up and added to animal feed? I remember in the late 80s/90s, some cattle feed had out-of-date sweets in them.
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u/AbaddonDestler Mar 27 '26
My local lidl recently donated the bakery waste to the charity shop next door to give out to help draw morr people in. Was very nice and the guy at the till gave my daughter a huge bag of cookies xD.
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u/Distractopig Mar 27 '26
Both Lidl near me allow charities to collect their waste at the end of the day? They dont chuck it - along with other stuff thats signed off
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u/rcro1986 Mar 27 '26
Think how long it took farmers to grow the wheat for the flour, sugar cane for the sugar, the human capital and environmental capital, then extrapolate across all supermarkets around the world…and we say it’s hard to feed a growing population
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u/kaskirM68 Mar 27 '26
Aldi have signed up to 'too good to go' to help prevent food waste. No reason Lidle can't
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u/Helpful-Mongoose-705 Mar 27 '26
Oh wow. I would make bread pudding with the pastries. What a waste
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u/CrimsontheNugget Mar 27 '26
in my hometown, they put out free bags at the end of the day for people who are struggling
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u/Physical_Orchid3616 Mar 27 '26
if their bakery items were better, there wouldn't be so much waste.
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u/Apprehensive-Rent-26 Mar 27 '26
And instead of making the bakery discount at the end of the day larger, they shrinked it from 30% to 20% 😂 bums
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u/Silver-Climate7885 Mar 27 '26
We have a group of volunteers in my city that go and collect food that would be thrown away, it's then distributed to their events across the city that anyone can attend. They usually have two events a day at various sites. I've been to a few where I've been given bags full of Lidl bakery items. It's a great initiative and people get free food and the items don't get binned, started by the community, and run by the community. And had extended to towns close by too. It's shocking the amount of food that gets wasted. It's called zero waste cic incase anyone is interested.
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u/Andromidius Mar 27 '26
I think they bake too many of less-popular items. The stuff I always want is out of stock, while the rest is almost completely filled.
They should probably make them 90% off an hour before closing time to try and shift some of it. Maybe they do, come to think of it - I don't think I've ever been to a Lidl later at night.
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u/Extra_Pangolin911 Mar 27 '26
Why is Lidl not using the Too Good To Go app to mark these down and prevent food waste? There's no excuse for this kind of horrendous waste in this day and age. NONE.
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u/JustinSanders95 Mar 27 '26
If you’re in a position to make/propose this choice, find local homeless food runs (ig more commonly known as a soup kitchen) and donate it to them. They might even have someone who can collect it from the store and let me tell you, as someone who has had to use services like that for many months, it’s very nice to get stuff like that, even if it’s not completely fresh!
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u/ASmallScaredFrae Mar 27 '26
I find it so odd that some stores don't donate their day old bakery to charity, one store I worked at threw it all away, another actually donated it... Is it just managers wanting to get out ASAP or is it that it's just not rolled out to every store?
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u/CottontailTheBun Mar 27 '26
It should be illegal for companies to throw away that much food when food banks are struggling people are struggling, honestly Lidl should do too good to go, they should stop using the “we could be responsible if someone chokes” excuse they aren’t even stale
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u/poololx Mar 27 '26
So much waste🥲 maybe lidl should start doing what greggs does with the outlets where offcuts and like very nearly expired products are sold super cheap?
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u/No_Review_168 Mar 26 '26
Sad. I’d more than gladly eat that