The Senate’s Agriculture, Livestock and Food Committee approved this Thursday the opinion of the bill on the prevention of food losses and waste, which will continue the parliamentary process and will be passed to the Upper House Plenary.
The law aims to prevent and reduce food losses and waste by all agents in the food chain. To do this, it seeks to raise awareness and inform agents in production, processing, distribution, hotels, restaurants, consumers and the general public about this issue.
How it is structured
The bill, structured in six chapters, includes specific measures for all agents in the food chain, from producers to final consumers. Chapter I defines the purpose of the law, which, in essence, is “the prevention and reduction of food losses and waste by all agents in the food chain, establishing a hierarchy of solution priorities and responding to the objective of the 2030 Agenda on the food system of responsible production and consumption.”
It also details the specific objectives, such as reducing waste and promoting food donation, and its scope of application, which prefigures the content of the standard itself: the activities of agents involved in the production, processing or distribution of food, as well as hospitality, catering and other entities and associations for the distribution of food donation and the public administration.
In addition, it establishes the definitions of the concepts applicable to the standard and regulates the guiding principles, such as “the efficiency in the use of natural, social, economic and productive resources in the food chain, not prioritising only the economic and ensuring the sustainability of our food system, or the promotion of food donation, emphasising collaboration between public administrations”.
Chapter II regulates “the obligations of agents in the food chain, establishing a list of issues that all agents must bear in mind, so that it operates as a common basis for their activities”. Among them, hospitality companies and other food service providers must offer customers the possibility of taking away uneaten food.
Chapter III details good practices for companies that sell food to the final consumer and hospitality companies. Chapter IV, for its part, focuses on “the rationalisation of best-before dates to contribute to the prevention and reduction of food losses and waste. Thus, a mandate is contained to promote the adaptation of best-before dates to the prevention and reduction of food losses and waste, within the framework of European regulations”.
Chapter V establishes the instruments “for the promotion and control of the reduction and prevention of food losses and waste, which include measures to promote self-regulation and discipline the system for the application and control of this public policy”, including a Strategic Plan for the prevention and reduction of food losses and waste.
Finally, Chapter VI establishes the sanctioning regime, which classifies the infractions and includes the basic sanctions in this area, “so as to ensure a wide margin for the autonomous regulations to decide what their system of infractions and sanctions should be, within a basic framework that ensures a reasonable minimum common regulation.”
