Grocery Stores In France Are Being Forced To Do Something Awesome

1. French officials recently passed a law that makes it illegal for supermarkets to throw away or destroy unsold food.

The ban on supermarket food waste was passed by the French national assembly with a unanimous vote. According to official estimates, the average French person throws out around 40 pounds of food a year 15 pounds of which is still in the package.

2. The new law, designed to crack down on rampant food waste, requires supermarkets to donate edible unused food to charities that feed the underserved.

Food stuffs that are spoiled or otherwise inedible must be donated to facilities that will turn them into animal feed.

3.

Supermarkets with a footprint of 4,305 sq ft or more will have to sign contracts with charities by July next year or face penalties including fines of up to $82,000 or two years in jail.

4. Under the new law, supermarkets will also be barred from deliberately spoiling unsold food so it cannot be eaten. In the past, some grocery stores have been known to douse trashed food in bleach to discourage people from scavenging in them. Other supermarkets deliberately store their trashed food in locked warehouses.

According to the Guardian, the French law "goes further than the UK, where the government has a voluntary agreement with the grocery and retail sector to cut both food and packaging waste in the supply chain, but does not believe in mandatory targets."

And both of them go further than the U.S., which has taken zero steps to address the massive amount of food that ends up in dumpsters instead of people's bellies on a daily basis.