Exactly, can't be won't.

There are places where the trash bins of supermarkets are locked so homeless people can't take thrown away food from them

So, here's a problem: food logistics is a massive, complicated morass of infrastructure. Getting food from the area where it's produced to the area where there are people who want to eat it is difficult. A lot of individual steps have to go right for a bell pepper grown in Coahuila to show up in a grocery store in Tokyo, unspoilt and ready to eat.

The timing of when the pepper is picked, how fast it will ripen and how long until it spoils is built into the steps of the supply chain. The cost of the logistics system for distributing food, and the overhead for managing and containing the chaos, is probably substantially higher than the cost of actually producing the food.

The point being, when the bell pepper is at the store it is now ready for consumption. It will be there 2, maybe 3 days, and then if it is unsold it is at least halfway to rotten. Now at this point you want to try to redistribute it, which will require another supply chain, but there isn't time to figure out where to send an overripe bell pepper or who would want to eat it, or to pack it and ship it and then unpack it and hopefully use it before it's completely rotten.

Refrigeration is a wonderful technology that has brought massive reduction of food waste, but it has limits. You can't un-ripen a fruit. Trying to re-ship food at this point would not be worth the cost, and ultimately would create environmental harms that would outweigh any benefit.

Always buy local, as much as you can!

Dumpster diving is fun and easy.

The excess is also insane. When people can't afford or won't afford the high beef prices, will the corporations who make it produce less or take it to market to be used in more sustainable products? As a society we've moved to not just make sure enough food is available but that everyone has an opportunity to purchase anything they might want. With fresh foods that means guaranteed waste, which means higher prices to make up for that waste.

My great grandparents ran a grocery store in a very small town. My grandfather ran a butcher counter that he got regular deliveries for and everyone in town knew the schedule, once the meat was gone, that was it until the next delivery. They grew produce in the summer and always canned any excess. There was always enough food for everyone who cared to buy it, but there wasn't so much that everyone could get everything at any time.

Unsold food that is given away creates a liability if it causes problems. Food banks are the middle man in that respect, where they can toss things that aren't going to stay good and provide for people with the rest. So here's where government, regulation, and socialism comes into play. Companies should be encouraged with money to do something other than toss that food. Better systems should be in place to move that food to the food bank. Better regulation there to make sure that the food is being examined well enough. More places for all this to happen.

This ignores fixing the real problem, profit driven consumption, societies where people aren't able to provide for themselves, etc.

So by itself you aren't going to get unsold food to the needy, the risk and cost is too great for companies.

What is the point of automation and mass production when the prices of certain basic staples keeps going up?

Horizontal Integration Explained

Companies pursue horizontal integration for synergies like economies of scale or cost savings in marketing, R&D, production, and distribution. This can make manufacturing multiple products more cost-effective. Tiers of sale under a single distributor (economy and generic versus luxury or specialty) also afford the corporate entity to scale price to income and maximize revenue per customer.

The "organic" label is a good example of this in practice. Add a 50% mark-up on bananas by telling people the "regular" bananas are unsafe. Anyone who can't tolerate the professed risk (typically people with more disposable income) end up paying extra to the same distributor for what is functionally the same product sold at a premium price.

Automation and Mass Production are tools of monopolization in the capitalist economic model. The efficiencies of production are used to lock competitors out of the market, not to improve the consumer-experienced efficiency of production, distribution, or sale.

I mean, in Holland a loaf of bread is like €1...

https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi589882

A dollar might be a little optimistic today - I say this because a basic loaf of bread I bake at home, which I do a lot, costs me around $1.10. Of course a bakery buys bulk ingredients at lower cost, but they also have to pay employees and I don't.

Remember that a portion of the sale of every loaf of bread goes to make the stock-holder douchebags richer.

What is the point of automation and mass production

Profits for the few, enslavement for the rest.

the prices of certain basic staples keeps going up

It's very hard to enslave people who are free and have their needs met.

we can’t get a loaf of bread down to 1 dollar?

Capitalism can not exist with the violent deprivation of basic human needs.

You're not far off, but political propaganda prevents people from realizing it apparently.

+Healthcare

HEALTHCARE and medication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

The indus vally civilisation was very likely egalitarian

... and then the violent imposed capitalism.

We've done this. The people in charge of the killing are the new kings.

Not saying it'll yield a worse situation, tho.

While you're figuring out how to run the world without capitalism, which opportunistic individuals, agencies, and countries are going to be exploiting the massive power vacuum you have created? I think change is needed, but at least have a fucking plan before suggesting something that affects your multivariable social credit score at the NSA. You're not helping anything or anyone and you're actively harming yourself. All data is collected and compiled. There is more going on than you are aware of, and if you are not aware there is a decentralized autonomous organization of secret police described at an eighth grade reading level in the New Testament, you may wanna freshen up on your Knowledge base.

Y'know, the Illuminati existed to help guide people waking up to the half-truths into the occult while catching those people who just wanted to burn the church to the ground. There's mechanisms in place to catch the bad apples, and if you're mouthing off with this, you are probably fucking yourself in some way you are not aware. I say this as someone that could be a fed. I might be a fed. I may be a fed. And you are incapable of discerning the truth despite me saying this, y'understand? Dazzle camouflage. You are likely under investigation. But I only know you from one comment. Imagine what someone reading your messages thinks of you. :)