Spain opens war on food waste in restaurants and supermarkets
Baku, June 7, AZERTAC
In Spain, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, cited by El País, in 2020 1,364 million kilograms of food were thrown away, that is, 31 kilograms per person. A waste that the Government wants to put a brake on and for which it wants to approve, this Tuesday, a bill in which fines can reach 60 thousand euros, according to Then24.
The bill for the Prevention of Food Loss and Waste, which will be presented this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers, before being submitted to Parliament, provides that all agents in the food chain have a prevention plan. So that waste is avoided and that all bars, restaurants or supermarkets that do not comply with the law are sanctioned.
The priority use of food should be human consumption depending on the donation to entities such as food banks, with companies having to specify the conditions of collection, storage and transport. of food, this is because organizations must know where the donated food came from.
When food cannot be donated, it must be turned into juices, marmalades or jams. The third option will be delivery for animal feed.
The ministry also says that food that is no longer good for consumption in bars, restaurants or supermarkets can still be used for industrial by-products and recycling of compounds or fuel. According to 2020 data, the majority of wasted food is products that have not been cooked.
The bill provides that establishments that do not respect this rule incur fines that can range from 2,001 to 60,000 euros, for serious infractions. In case of recidivism, the fine can reach half a million euros.
Despite the large amount of waste occurring in private homes (75%), the new law does not, however, provide for sanctions for those who waste food at home, with only awareness campaigns being planned.
This law thus tries to fulfill one of the sustainable development goals of the UN’s 2030 agenda: to halve per capita food waste worldwide. With the advancement of these measures, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food says that Spain would become the third country, after France and Italy, to approve a standard with these characteristics.
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