To fight against food waste, British supermarkets Waitrose announced in early August to withdraw the recommended consumption dates on nearly 500 products. Should this initiative be implemented in France?
Article written by
Posted
Reading time : 2 min.
Mayenne MP Guillaume Garot welcomes the initiative of British supermarkets Waitrose to remove the consumption dates of 500 products. Deputy of the Socialist Party, affiliate Nupes, of Mayenne, he had carried the “Garot law” 2016 on food waste and a bill in 2021 to remove the expiry date for optimal use (DLUO) of dry products pleads that “these dates act in the minds of consumers as deadlines”.
franceinfo: How do you judge what these British supermarkets offer?
Guillaume Garot: It’s a good idea because today in France, 20% of household food waste could be avoided if we had consumption dates that were easier to understand. This initiative should be welcomed even if we have to see that it would be impossible to transpose in France since we are subject to the laws of the European Union. Today we have the use-by dates for fresh products and the best-before dates for dry products.
What do you think can be done?
Today, certain products such as salt, vinegar or sugar are not affected by these consumption dates. I suggest extending the range of these products to pasta and rice: products that keep for a very long time and that don’t really need dates. The problem is that these dates act in the minds of consumers as deadlines: dry products are considered as fresh products. This implies that if we want there to be fewer products with these use-by dates, we need real education, real awareness from school so that we can make the difference between fresh and dry products. .
What is the link with global warming?
We have before us the global food challenge: a third of all the world’s food production is today lost, discarded or wasted. It is considerable. If we want every human being to have access to food, we will have to stop wasting and be more responsible with regard to our food. This is imperative if we want to avoid extremely strong disturbances, political tensions around access to food. While recalling that food production is the source of 10% of our greenhouse gas emissions.