I always remember that Noah's Bagels would make certain to throw away excess bagels at the end of the day. It's probably, unfortunately, America-specific, but when I asked why staff said if they gave away "old" baked-goods and someone were to get sick they would be liable to lawsuit.
It's unfortunately a popularly repeated belief it's just FUD without any supporting evidence. Usually the real answer is simply that it's cheaper to discard.
A bakery will still try to optimize supply and demand as much as possible; machine learning algorithms can help with things like that as well (predicting demand). For a bagel shop it'll also help if they can produce something on short notice.
Of course, said shops will also need to have something on display at all times to lure customers in, so there will always be some waste. As long as the percentage of waste remains low it should be fine. Besides, food waste isn't too bad for the environment (relatively), it's fully biodegradable.
Generally speaking, there are Good Samaritan laws that avoid that. The issue more often is that stores don't want to deal with the headaches that can stem from being a place for those who are unhoused to congregate for free food. It's rarely good for business.
Usually though (in France at least) it's not the shop giving out free bagels at the back after they close down, they hand the leftovers to local associations that do the redistribution part.
I know a bakery operator who said the health code required throwing away unsold baked goods with butter content at the end of the day, when I asked him about donating to the homeless.
I'd want to see a specific law citation before I believe that. I'm sure you're trying to report what he said accurately, but he may have been misleading or mistaken.
"The food shall be cooked and served, served if ready to eat, or discarded within 4 hours from the point in time when the food is removed from temperature control;"
That only applies to "potentially hazardous food". A baked good doesn't fit the definition. Butter in the recipe doesn't matter. A cream filling might, so perhaps that caused some confusion?
Also "four hours" isn't really an "end of the day" thing... And if they're in temperature control at the end of the day, then four hours is plenty of time to get them distributed and consumed.
Baked goods, like cakes, are made fresh each morning. They are served at room temperature. At the end of the day, they are thrown out because the health code says so. 4 hours is the Illinois limit.
Here's an FDA list of TCS (Temperature Controlled for Safety) foods:
From a chemical standpoint: butter/eggs mixed with sugar (even if it's cooked) is substantially different and more likely to spoil than butter/egg mixed with flour and cooked.
You should throw out cakes and cream puffs. You can donate bagels and challah bread.
I'm HACCP Certified: That's an odd interpretation of the law. From the section you're quoting:
"If time only, rather than time in conjunction with temperature, is used as the public health control for a working supply of potentially hazardous food before cooking, or for ready-to-eat potentially hazardous food that is displayed or held for service for immediate consumption"
Many baked goods are not considered "potentially hazardous foods". Things filled or frosted fall into a different grouping, but most plain breads (even those including eggs or butter) are shelf stable for days. They suffer a sever drop in culinary quality (ie; stale) but they don't suffer a drop in culinary safety.
Maybe the guy is extremely risk averse, maybe his area has a very zealous food safety department, but it seems like he's not super interested in trying to make this happen (which is fine, he can spend his time doing whatever he want).
The section you cite applies to 'potentially hazardous foods', which generally are foods held at hot or cold temperature, not baked goods held at room temperature (even baked goods with butter in them).
It's often about incentives. Why buy if you can wait until the shop is about to close and get it for free? Or as an employee, why care about food wastage if it gives you lot of free goods you can take home?
