France unveils new strategies to prevent food waste

Monday, February 29, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Tags: food waste, France, feeding homeless

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(NaturalNews) Over 7 million tons of food are thrown out each year in the United Kingdom alone. For just a moment, imagine London's Wembley stadium being filled to the brink with food, overflowing with meats and cheeses, fruits and vegetables. The amount of food wasted yearly in the U.K. could fill this stadium nine times over! This is perfectly good food that could have been shared with the homeless and the hungry, the downtrodden and the poor.

The problem of food waste is even more severe on a worldwide scale. Every year, 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted throughout the world. There is more than enough food being produced right now to end world hunger, but large volumes of good food are falling through the cracks of our food distribution systems. Many laws and health department regulations restrict supermarkets and manufacturers from sharing their unsold food products with the hungry because of food safety concerns.

Most supermarkets and restaurants insist on throwing food in the dumpster instead of donating it, because owners fear they will be held liable if the food sickens someone. In some places, food that is thrown out can be written off as a business loss, or tax break. Instead of giving credit for food waste, policies could be implemented to encourage supermarkets to drastically reduce the price of foods that are going out of date or about to spoil.

In France, 15% of food waste comes from restaurants, 11% from shops, and a staggering 67% is wasted by consumers. Some foods do spoil before they can be eaten, but the bigger problem that needs to be addressed is the spoiled mindset of consumers who now expect food to look perfect and be readily available at their beck and call. Tons of food are wasted because customers and merchants don't like or approve of the way the food looks. Supermarkets reject food that doesn't meet customer demand and appetites. So much is thrown away based on appearance alone.

In France, supermarkets will now be required to donate unsold food to food banks

Soon, the food banks of France will be overflowing with various kinds of food that was once thrown out and left to spoil. A grassroots campaign in France seeks to keep unsold food out of the dumpster, putting it in the hands of the needy. Going forward, large French supermarkets measuring greater than 400 square meters (approx. 4,300 square feet), will now be required to donate unsold food items to food banks. Food banks will then be tasked with giving the food out to those in need, in a dignified manner.

Food that is approaching its best-before date will no longer be thrown out. Store management will be required to sign donation contracts with charities to make better use of unsold product. If they don't, they could face big fines and up to two years imprisonment. This brilliant move will boost supermarket donations by 15%, and help the food banks supply an additional 10 million meals to hungry people each year.

Additionally, supermarkets will no longer be allowed to deliberately spoil food to keep people out of their bins. The law also makes it easier for manufacturers of food products to donate their excess directly to charities. In the past, excess supermarket brand name products had to go through a complicated process to be donated. Now the excess products can be donated directly.

The campaign was started by Arash Derambarsh, a municipal councilor for Courbevoie. He says, "The next step is to ask the president, Francois Hollande, to put pressure on Jean-Claude Juncker and to extend this law to the whole of the EU. This battle is only just beginning. We now have to fight food waste in restaurants, bakeries, school canteens and company canteens."

Jacques Bailet, who is in charge of several French food banks, says that the law is, "positive and very important symbolically. ... Most importantly, because supermarkets will be obliged to sign a donation deal with charities, we'll be able to increase the quality and diversity of food we get and distribute," he adds. "In terms of nutritional balance, we currently have a deficit of meat and a lack of fruit and vegetables. This will hopefully allow us to push for those products."

Sources include:

FoodMatters.tv

Science.NaturalNews.com