What other countries can learn from France’s anti-food waste law

The single biggest source of food waste is the household refrigerator. Every year UK households waste £17bn of food. That amounts to 60 million tonnes of lost food, or roughly 88 kg per person. The cost isn’t the only problem. Food waste is one of the single biggest sources of CO2, accounting for almost 10% of all humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions.    

A decade ago, France decided to take aim at one visible part of the problem. In 2016, the country became the first in the world to ban large supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food that was still fit to eat. Under the law, known as the Loi Garot, supermarkets with more than 400 square metres of floor space were required to donate such food to charities or food banks. 

The measure was welcomed as a radical step towards tackling food waste, but ten years on the French experiment offers complicated lessons for other countries looking to replicate the model. While the law has increased the amount of food being donated by supermarkets, getting that food from shops to people who need it has sometimes proved more difficult. Charities have struggled with the logistics of collecting donations, while some say they are increasingly receiving food with very little time left before its expiration date. 

France introduced the law at a time when great effort had already been made to reduce food waste at the market level. Before the law came into force, 64% of stores surveyed said they were already donating unsold food to charities. By 2019, that figure had risen to 96%. Three of the country’s main food aid charities said the law had increased donations and the food being collected became more diverse. 

But donation is only the beginning of the process. Someone still has to collect the food. Someone has to transport it, sort it and distribute it. That work largely falls to charities. 

In a 2019 report from EY, charities claimed that logistics remained an obstacle to collecting food. Their difficulties included a lack of equipment, training and volunteers. Nearly half of the charities surveyed said they did not have the resources to collect food every day. The problem is particularly acute in isolated areas, where the distance between supermarkets and charities can make collection more difficult. 

In response, new organisations have emerged to act as intermediaries between supermarkets and charities. Their work includes arranging exchanges between stores and charities, training supermarket employees, providing logistical support, and developing systems for recycling food that cannot be redistributed.  

The arrangement can make the system more efficient. But charities say it has also had unintended consequences. Some have lost the direct relationship they once had with supermarkets. More importantly, they say that increasingly, the food they receive has a shorter shelf life. For charities, quantity is only one measure of a useful donation. Food that arrives with less than two days before its expiration date can be difficult to distribute, particularly for organisations that do not have the resources for daily collection.  

The result is that much of the food waste moves from supermarkets to the charities themselves. On paper, the retailer has reduced its waste, but that does not necessarily mean that more food reaches people who need it. 

Nutrition is another problem. France’s National Nutrition and Health Program recommends that fruit and vegetables make up 33% of an individual’s diet, while fats account for 2.5%. Yet data from the Fédération Française des Banques Alimentaires showed that fruit and vegetables accounted for 26% of donations to food banks, while sugar, fats and salty snacks accounted for 14%. 

Charities have also reported receiving relatively little fresh food and animal protein, including fish, eggs and meat, compared with dry and canned products. Canned vegetables are better than no vegetables, but the process of canning can remove much of the nutrients that make the produce worth eating.  

The law does not reach the biggest source of waste 

The most fundamental criticism of the French approach may be that it addresses only one part of the food system. A third of food waste in France occurs at the household level.  

What’s needed is a serious effort to reduce food waste that reaches the shopper rather than the shop. National awareness campaigns could help people understand how much food they throw away and why. Simple habits, such as planning meals and making shopping lists, can reduce the amount of food bought without a clear purpose. 

In 2024, France targeted household waste by passing a “composte obligatoire” law that mandates that all households must sort organic waste into a separate bin. A year after the law’s enactment, 64% of French households report separating compost compared to 54% a year earlier.  

Buying smaller quantities more frequently can make it easier for households to purchase only what they expect to eat – assuming of course that there are local, accessible shops. More greengrocers and other sources of fresh produce in food deserts would make it easier for people to buy what they need without having to travel long distances and stock up on food that goes off before they can eat it.  

The same principle applies further up the food chain. A 2018 study from the University of Edinburgh found that almost a third of fruits and vegetables are wasted every year in Europe because of their appearance. Some businesses have built models around this problem. In Britain, subscription services such as Oddbox deliver produce that has been rejected for conventional supermarket shelves. 

What the French experiment shows 

The French law can reasonably be seen as a success in two respects. It helped reduce waste among large supermarkets and increased the amount of food being donated to charities. But the past decade has also exposed the limits of legislation that depends on charities to do the work that follows. The law can require a supermarket to donate food. It cannot, by itself, provide the volunteers, vehicles, storage facilities and time needed to make sure that food reaches someone’s plate. 

Nor can a supermarket donation policy solve waste created in people’s homes or on farms. The lesson for other countries may therefore be about understanding where responsibilities begin and end. A food waste policy should consider the entire path food takes to the plate, from the farm to the shop and from the shopping bag to the refrigerator. Reducing food waste is not the responsibility of a single sector or industry, but of society at large which depends on food for sustenance and joy.