Should it Be Illegal for Supermarkets in Wisconsin to Waste Food?
Background:
Food waste is when perfectly edible food is purposely discarded of. Food waste is a major problem and happens way more than most people expect. In fact, one of the largest sources of food waste is the supermarket. According to the article, “Should It Be Illegal for Supermarkets to Waste Food?”, “U.S. supermarkets and grocery stores threw out 43 billion pounds, or $46.7 billion worth, of food” (Delman, 2015). If supermarkets are throwing away this much food, why can’t they just donate the food to people who are in need? Almost all of the supermarkets around the world choose not to do this because of the “tedious” and “costly” work it take to donate the food. One country that proved this to be wrong is France. France is the only country who made it illegal for supermarkets to waste food and has even enforced punishments for wasting food. According to the article, “France's bold attack on food waste: Law will prohibit supermarkets from trashing unsold food”, “Food that's deemed unsellable, but still edible, is to be donated; larger stores will have to sign formal agreements with charities by July of next year or else face up to €75,000 ($83,000) in fines -- or possibly jail time” (Abrams, 2015) . If France is able to make it illegal for supermarkets to waste their food, why don’t other developed countries follow in their footsteps? According to according to Elise Golan, the director for sustainable development at USDA. one of the reasons that other countries are hesitant to make it illegal for supermarkets to waste their food is the process of getting safe and edible food from anywhere to people is very difficult and requires large amounts of money. She also feels like the end result ends up not being good for anybody in the end. A lot of supermarkets are also afraid that they will get sued if the food that they donate is somehow bad and makes people sick. Supermarkets shouldn’t have to worry about this because of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which ensures that donors are not liable for harm done by donated food as long as it was given in good faith. Although some supermarkets do waste some of their food, some supermarkets do things to decrease the amount of waste. For example, places like Aldi sell imperfect produce for a discounted price instead of just throwing them away. If other supermarkets followed in their footsteps, not only would they decrease food waste, but they’d also make a larger profit. Making a little more money is better than making no money at all. Another thing some supermarkets do is they work with farmers and help them determine how much of a crop they should produce. This prevents farmers from over producing crops and overall decreases food waste.
Current Status of Food Waste in Supermarkets:
The situation right now for food waste in supermarkets is that there are a lot of food being wasted and nothing being done about it. according to “These Grocery Store Waste Statistics Are A Wake Up Call”, “About 43 billion pounds of food each year is being wasted each year by local supermarkets. 50% of that 43 billion that is being thrown out is still edible.” (Hazimihalis, 2018). They throw those edible foods out so quickly without even thinking is because the supermarkets think that if the food isn’t super shiny and doesn’t look 100% perfect then nobody is going to buy those foods and they’ll go to waste anyway. Ways that stores can prevent the food from being wasted because they were sitting on the shelves too long is by not overstocking them. A local Stop and Shop experimented this by not overstocking the shelves and the sales skyrocketed and a greater customer satisfaction.
Key Players:
- Supermarkets: Supermarkets seem to almost always want to eliminate food waste as it helps out a lot of people in need, but supermarkets value their money more and don’t donate their food a lot of the times because of the cost of donating and they fear that they will be liable if someone gets sick off of their food.
- People who can’t afford food: People who have trouble affording food want supermarkets to donate their food instead of wasting it because the food goes to them and prevents them from starving.
- Environmentalist: Environmentalists are against supermarkets wasting their food as it is a waste of natural resources, it takes up a large amount of space in landfills, and it contributes to climate change as greenhouse gases are given off during the process of food waste.
- France: France’s government thinks that it should be illegal for supermarkets to waste their food which resulted them in using legislation to make it illegal for supermarkets to waste food.
- USDA: Although the USDA is against food waste, they don't really want to make it illegal for supermarkets to waste food but instead, they want to work on ways to reduce food waste without making it illegal.
- Consumers: Although many consumers say they feel like food waste from supermarkets should be illegal, a lot of consumers only want to eat the perfect produce and will not eat the slightly imperfect produce which contributed to food waste. Consumers value perfect fruit over imperfect fruit.
Who’s Got the Power?
The people who have the most power in this situation is the government. Although supermarkets are the ones causing waste in this scenario, the government has the power to create laws to prevent the food from being wasted. For example, France’s government used its power to make it illegal for supermarkets to waste food. The government can make these laws despite what the supermarket wants to do. Although the supermarkets aren’t top of the power chain, they still do conceal a great amount of power. Supermarkets have the power to basically do whatever they want (when there’s no government action). Supermarkets can waste their food as much as they want if they want; they can use methods to reduce food waste; or they can completely eliminate their food waste by donating. If a supermarket wasted a high percentage of their food and consumers had a problem with it, it wouldn’t have a high chance of changing the way of the supermarket. This leads to the low end of the power scale. Consumers have the least power in this scenario as their complaints are very unlikely to have much change in the amount of food waste a supermarket has. On the other hand, if consumers do work together, they can increase their chance to make a change. For example, France’s law to criminalize the waste of food in supermarkets was presented and encouraged by a large amount of consumers.
Possible Solutions:
- Educating people, for example; teaching that a bruised banana can still be eaten.
- More meal planning for consumers before shopping
- Buying smaller amounts of food more often
- Properly storing all food to prevent spoiling
- Compost or donate instead of throwing away
References
Abrams, Lindsay. “France's Bold Attack on Food Waste: Law Will Prohibit Supermarkets from Trashing Unsold Food.” Salon, Salon.com, 22 May 2015, www.salon.com/2015/05/22/frances_bold_attack_on_food_waste_law_will_prohibit_supermarkets_from_trashing_unsold_food/.
Delman, Edward. “Should It Be Illegal for Supermarkets to Waste Food?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 29 May 2015, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/law-france-supermarkets-food-waste/394481/.
Hazimihalis, Katina. “3 Eye-Opening Facts About Grocery Store Waste.” 3 Shocking Grocery Store Food Waste Statistics | Dumpsters.com, 31 Oct. 2018, www.dumpsters.com/blog/grocery-store-food-waste-statistics.
Mooney, Chris. “The Staggering Environmental Footprint of All the Food That We Just Throw in the Trash.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 18 Apr. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/18/americans-waste-about-a-quarter-of-the-food-they-buy-and-the-environmental-consequences-are-staggering/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c304483c0062.