And this is how it would actualy looklike in my opinion:
- You find a food.
- Click 1 - Send to camp.
*Later* - Enter Camp
- Talk to folks etc.
- Click 2 - Click on Bedroll
- Click 3 - add the food (Automatically chooses food from Camp Supplies to reach 40, defaults to fresh first)
- Click 4 - Sleep
And nothing else ...
Since there is still enough food in the world, so you dont really *need* to preserve anything ... you can just keep going around, looting another food, keep sending it to camp, and dont care about that crate at all ... your camp box is full of rotten food, so what?
You dont use it anyway.

And that is the problem ...
The only way food limits Long Resting is that picking food from the crate is anoying ... so people are holding some in their inventories ... if you would give that away, food would loose its only meaning.