I used to work in the Bakery in an ASDA store and personally think that we made sure the bread was as fresh as it could be 95% of the time. If it's in perforated wrap it will have been made fresh that day (if the bread is even remotely stale it means it's been left on the shelf overnight incorrectly). If it's in non-perforated wrap it will have been made up to 2 days before.
I can tell you from experience that the reason ISB products are stale or mouldy is usually entirely down to neglect from the colleagues and nothing to do with ASDA (or any supermarket) itself. We all know 50% of supermarket staff don't really give a monkeys and will do as little as possible - just enough to look like they've done their job (which bizarrely fools no one except the department manager!). What this means is they'll leave older bread on the shelf (when it should be sliced) and simply pack the fresh stuff and leave it out back
without labelling it. The next day or even the day after they'll label it up and put it out meaning it could be 4 or 5 days old on the shelf when it purports to be but 1 or 2 days old. My advice would be to always ask the colleagues nearby whether they have any fresh loaves of your desired bread made that day. I should probably mention that the other 50% of the staff are trying desperately to give the customers great service (and foiling their less caring colleagues' attempts to sabotage the bread quality).
Most other items come in frozen and are
mostly appropriately labeled and merchandised. I'd probably avoid all donuts at ASDA because they all come in frozen now and have gone down drastically in quality. Nowadays most supermarkets bake a lot of frozen stuff so when it says 'freshly baked today' it basically means 'reheated today'. It always suprises me how many people don't realise half of the stuff made 'In store' really comes in frozen.
Bread brought in from outside bakeries (HOVIS, Kingsmill etc.) are simply taken off a truck and put on the shelf by colleagues and have much longer shelf lives than their labels suggest as already mentioned. This bread is much better for toast.
It's very rare to find mouldy bread on BIBC but it sometimes happen when the packaging has been accidently opened and it's hot.
In relation to how much supermarkets are actually to blame? Well they certainly try to cut corners on quantity and pricing - recently ASDA increased pack sizes from 4 to 6 rolls on a number of lines with an increase in price (obviously) but they also reduced the weight of the rolls from 80g to 70g (meaning smaller rolls) though still labeled them 'large' - it's a small change but over time! What they wouldn't do, however, is break trading laws intentionally (or conspicuously
) by selling inedible food; they get in a whole lot of poo poo with trading standards if even one thing is left on the shelf out of date and so it's not at all in their best interests to do such things.
For what it's worth when the bread is fresh I think that it's really nice (not trying to pimp ASDA but their bloomers and french sticks are tons better than anywhere else).
And though my knowledge is very much ASDA orientated I have an embarrassing habit of stalking every bakery whenever I enter a Tescos or Morrisons or Sainsbury's and I can say that the same thing happens everywhere.
Wow I must be bored to post so much about bread.
Edit: Holy **** just saw how much I actually wrote, VERY BORED!
Edit2: You should avoid home delivery at all costs, though supermarkets policies on picking (or the actual 'shopping') say always get stuff made that day or with at least 2 days shelf life most staff don't really care and will chuck anything in their baskets. You don't get to assess the date or the quality of what your buying which is something I can't handle personally - I always like to check I'm getting the best for my money.
The joy of working with "Valuable" customers 
.
