Why Do Stores Throw Away So Many Perfectly Good Products? I Went Dumpster Diving to Find Out.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Not Really A Write-Off

The cost of goods at wholesale is already part of the expenses, so on a P&L statement, the expenses have no revenue offset. No taxes are paid anyway.
Now, if they gave away stuff past it's sell-by date, (but still suitable for consumption) to a food pantry, the lost margin IS a write-off. But, only the margins, not the retail value, as what the store paid is already non-taxable.
In our tax accounting class in MBA school, retail was a focus for about 40% of the term, and grocery was a case study for a quarter of that. Learned quite a lot in that class.