I was reading some news on how France has adopted a law that bans supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food. Instead, they would have to donate the food to a charity or food bank. Kind of makes sense in every way huh? The sad thing is though this reminds me of a story that I heard on a film set.
Essentially, a lot of productions usually have a ton of food where it’s not surprising that at the end of the day a lot of food probably gets thrown away. Initially they would encourage people to just take the food home. People would go home with stacks of bread or meat as an example where for many this means they don’t need to grocery shop. I don’t know as to how valid this story is, but apparently there was a person who took the food home and left it sitting for days. As a result, it got bad. However, he still ate it and as a result he got sick.
Because of this he was able to hold the company responsible financially for his medical bills and such. As a result, the general policy was to then always just throw everything away. The more I think about it this liability is probably the big reason why supermarkets here don’t just give items away. Kind of silly in some ways on how business wise you still have to think long and hard about giving stuff for free even if it is for a charitable cause.