When I was a poor starving student and worked in a supermarket the managers had to put all the expired cakes and cookies in the trash compactor to stop workers taking them. Not sure if this was so we would buy from the store instead or in case we sued if we got ill
I believe the reason is actually to avoid intentional over production. If the employees know that they'll be able to take home any left overs, then why not bake a few extra cakes... that kind of stuff.
I'm still a student but when I was much poorer and starving I raided a Dunkin Doughnuts dumpster and ended up with an industrial sized trashbag of every doughnut they made sitting in my living room for 3 days, until me and my roommates got sick of eating nothing but doughnuts and threw them out proper.
