Every morning some of what we buy does not make the grade. Throwing it away would be the easy answer and the wrong one.
We grade everything on arrival into three buckets. A goes into this morning's plates. B is sound but not ready, so it is held under controlled conditions and usually goes out the following day. C does not go into a plate at all.
Most of the C grade goes back to the supplier under our replacement terms — that is what the terms are for, and a supplier who takes back rejects is a supplier worth keeping. Some of it is genuinely fine to eat but cosmetically poor, and that goes to staff or is donated locally rather than binned.
Wastage sits at around six percent at the moment. We would like it nearer four. Most of the remaining loss is in the B bucket, where fruit held for the next day does not always hold as well as we predicted. Better forecasting, not better storage, is what will fix it.