When I saw this little video rolling around on Facebook this week, I did some digging and found out that France has become the first country in the world to ban supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food. In February, the French senate unanimously passed a law requiring shops to instead donate the food to charities and food banks. This will allow charities to give out millions more free meals each year to people struggling to afford to eat.
(Before you even begin to ponder, no, we don’t do that here and I can’t imagine that we- one of the wealthiest nations in the world- will ever do it, either.)
The French law bars supermarkets from deliberately spoiling food in order to stop it being eaten by foraging people because, in recent years, growing numbers of families, students, unemployed and homeless people in France have been supermarket “dumpster diving” at night to feed themselves (because there was edible food thrown out just as their best-before dates approached).
Now, supermarkets with a footprint of 4,305 sq ft or more will have to sign contribution contracts with charities or face a penalty of almost $4000.
This is great news and hopefully, things will change here too as the poor continue to get poorer and need additional help.
Source: The Guardian
