The war on food waste: France 1, UK 0

First there were the ‘inglorious fruits’. Then there was the ‘gourmet bag’. And now, in an attempt to halve their food waste by 2025, the French have introduced new legislation that prevents supermarkets from throwing out or deliberately spoiling surplus food. Instead they must either give it to charities or to farmers for animal feed.

Good news for food waste in France, but on this side of the Channel it seems we have a lot of work to do, as the graph below (from this article) of the EU’s top ten producers of food waste shows:

More countries adopting France’s legislation would obviously be a welcome leap forward in the reduction of food waste, and would benefit charities that address food poverty. But as most research shows, the majority of food that gets binned is at a household, not industrial level, so if the UK and other EU countries are really going to make an impact, organisations like Love Food Hate Waste continuing to educate the public will be key.