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[BY2K]

Good job, France. Does Canada do that?

 

[Shuggananas]

but people should be able to make the distinction between "best before" and "expiration date". They are not the same thing, folks!

yep

 

[KooopaKid]

Good! Now that's a socialist law.

 

[Brazil]

Fucking awesome. Hopefully this becomes a standard in a not so far-off future.

 

[Trokil]

We actually had a system like that in Switzerland, but EU regulations were against it, because we feed old food from restaurants to pigs, which was against the law.

 

[GKSilKamina]

I'm glad this is happening.

When I worked at a supermarket it'd always bother me with how much food got tossed out. Some stuff would end up getting donated, but a lot of it just got tossed in the dumpster. I remember at night having to go to the bakery and deli to collect cakes, loaves of bread, containers of fried chicken, etc. and dump it all in the trash.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

How do you send a supermarket to jail for 2 years?

Put prisoners in the supermarket and turn it into a jail.

 

[Lightning_Roller]

This is awesome. Good going, France.

 

[Aiustis]

When I worked at meijers I used to regularly take items to the back for destruction. And it would be ridiculous the level of waste that I saw. One can in a twelve pack is missing or busted? Throw the other eleven away. Same with yogurt. I've seen cereal boxes that were damage, but the cereal was still sealed in the plastic bag get thrown away.

I like this law.

 

[VariantX]

Good. It's incredibly wasteful to throw away perfectly good food. Whether to animals or people, it should be used instead of going in the garbage to rot.

 

[shiherlis21]

Good job France! I've never understood the policy of destroying perfectly good food when others are struggling to feed themselves and their families.

 

[Ghostandgoblin]

If I remember well, the equivalent of this law passed in Belgium a few weeks/month/year ago. Great to see Europe move forward

 

[PulseONE]

Now if America did this, there'd be alot less starving people considering how much food is thrown away everyday

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Good for them. Hope other countries follow suit.

 

[Anarion07]

Amazing.
Germany, take note please.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

So...wait wait.

Instead of filling landfills with literally tonnes of perfectly edible food, we give that food to men, women and children who have no food?

Why?

Dont they have bootstraps in France?

 

[Aztechnology]

Yup.

Local walmart here makes a habit of, at 5 AM sharp everymorning, of taking all the "foodwaste", wrapping it up in saran-wrap, placing it carefully in a big heavy duty trashbag, and *gently* placing it a few feet outside the back door.

I'd always imagined this being the problem with simply giving unsold food away.

Although an important distinction to make is that the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act was signed into law in 1996 under Clinton, thus protecting donated goods unless gross negligence is involved. The reason most companies in the states don't donate is because of being misinformed and worrying about rediculous law suits, or because of logistical reasons. Being that it's hard for them to store the food for pickup because they don't plan around holding anything that's not marketable.

The logistics are the biggest problem for enforcing it in France, but I'm really happy they are trying. I'd love to see some legislation like this in the states, but it is so incredibly unlikely since it's definitely not in corporate interests.

 

[KalBalboa]

Nice.

 

[Aureon]

Hmm. I can't say I agree with the concept of forced donation. They'd have done better introducing an incentive to do it, rather than punishing you for not doing it.

It's not forced donation, it's forced recycling.

 

[terrisus]

You mean this isn't in place everywhere?

Can you give some examples of places where it is in place as a basis for your assumption?

 

[AlimNassor]

make a note we aren't throwing it way cause we're evil. The biggest issue is people can and have sued before, and won.

 

[madp0k]

Nice Work France

 

[linsivvi]

This is a documentary on food waste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkASAZGIuu0

 

[Ace 8095]

How many people are starving in France?

 

[Gattsu25]

Fucking finally.

Hopefully this policy spreads to other countries.

 

[DoubleYou]

That's great news. Let's hope more will follow.

 

[CTLance]

Wasting food is a terrible sin. Is a shame it even had to be put into letters, but I guess this gives all parties involved some sort of legal framework and certainty, so that's a good thing. Hope this spreads outside France.

 

[Siegcram]

How many people are starving in France?

More than in the US based on the lesser availability of 1.50$ hot dogs.

 

[Ghostandgoblin]

More than in the US based on the lesser availability of 1.50$ hot dogs.

We have 1€ baguettes, it's not that bad!

 

[Bleepey]

I used to work in a cinema, the food waste would get me angry. Like really fucking pissed. I am all for it, I do get why they waste it though, people can and will take the piss.

 

[Kinokou]

Oh this is fantastically awesome! Go France. I'm so happy for this, hopefully more countries will follow in the coming years.

Good. I used to work in KFC, and the amount of food that would go to waste each night was staggering. Fried stuff probably isn't as easy to transport and distribute as supermarket food, but something should be done with it rather than just bagging it up and stuffing it in the bin.

Frankly, I don't think fried fast food should be a priority to donate to charity. Not all supermarket food is healthy of course, but I hope the goal of something like this is offering some variety and not just fatty calorie dense stuff.

We actually had a system like that in Switzerland, but EU regulations were against it, because we feed old food from restaurants to pigs, which was against the law.

Well, maybe you can have another referendum if it goes through in France, since they're an actual EU country.

 

[daveo42]

Sounds pretty good to me.

You mean this isn't in place everywhere?

Because it absolutely should be.

I think the issue, at least in the US, with giving out free food is that far too many organizations worry about being sued by someone getting sick off of food being given away, especially if that food was past its "good by" date.

 

[Night Angel]

Smart. They should also do this for restaurants. Throwing out perfectly good food just seems like a waste, especially when there are people starving right outside the restaurant.

 

[Air]

As long as the food is still good sure. That's great news.

 

[NumberTwo]

I love it.

 

[genjiZERO]

Since France did it first the US will never adopt this out of spite.

 

[SocksAndShoes]

I do office work for a govt dining hall, and we throw away thousands and thousands of pounds of food every year. It's sickening and this should be mandatory everywhere.

From what I see everyday, there is no reason the food can't be diverted to shelters. Fear of litigation is the only thing stopping this.

 

[FreezeSSC]

So i guess this will be a good test to see if sales end up dropping as people wait for slightly expired food.

 

[legacyzero]

How most countries arent doing this, blows my mind..

 

[Night Angel]

I do office work for a govt dining hall, and we throw away thousands and thousands of pounds of food every year. It's sickening and this should be mandatory everywhere.

From what I see everyday, there is no reason the food can't be diverted to shelters. Fear of litigation is the only thing stopping this.

Solution: make people sign waivers. Set up quality standards at the shelters where the food is checked at the shelter for safety. If a shelter gets X people sick, have a system in place to improve the shelter in X time or they are out of the program.

 

[terrisus]

For what it's worth, at various points we've gotten food at food pantries, which were typically from local grocery stores and past their "sell by" date - but obviously still fine to eat.
So, it's not that no businesses did this (in the US anyway. Can't speak for France), but the implementing of a specific policy for it.

 

[Renekton]

Seems like it could be a logistical nightmare for both mart and charity - storage, freshness, transportation, legal risk, etc.

 

[grumpy]

GOOD
Hopefully this will become a EU-wide law eventually.

 

[ThLunarian]

There are substantial costs associated with such a policy. Working out the logistics of actually delivering food to shelters ans charities sounds like a potential nightmare.

And for restaurants, there's the added problem that most unused food is not transportable in its current state. For example, what are you supposed to do with a tub of sliced tomatoes, or some unwrapped, raw burger patties?

Your options are to either repackage them, or to actually create meals out of them, and in either case you incur labor and overhead costs, and you're not receiving any benefit at all from those costs.

The intentions here are good, but this is a bad idea.

 

[Earthstrike]

It's about time. It's absurd to think that we should tolerate the loss of wealth and resources being spent in order to destroy food.

 

[Doabian]

Good guy France, two thumbs up.

Hope this is an EU-wide legislation soon

 

[Firelord Chargrilled]

I support this

 

[ViviOggi]

This is such a no-brainer

 

[Semajer]

Frankly, I don't think fried fast food should be a priority to donate to charity. Not all supermarket food is healthy of course, but I hope the goal of something like this is offering some variety and not just fatty calorie dense stuff.

I'm not saying fast food should be collected and send out like the supermarket food, I just think there must be a better use for it than throwing it away.

 

[Zekes!]

This is cool. Here in Canada my brother got fired from his deli position in a grocery store (along with a bunch of other people) for eating a bit of the food they threw out at the end of the night.