“We can only congratulate ourselves that what is still consumable does not go to waste reception centers”, said Saturday January 1 on franceinfo Thierry Robert, the national secretary of Secours populaire, while producers and distributors of non-food products have, since January 1, been prohibited from destroying their unsold products in order to fight against food waste. But Thierry Robert believes that we “nor can we suppose that the poor and the precarious would have only the leftovers to live”. The People’s Aid “preserves the dignity of persons”, recalls its national secretary. If he welcomes the measure, he recalls that the recovery has “a financial impact” for the association. “We only take it if we are able to handle it.” The Secours populaire has “always need more people to implement this solidarity”.
franceinfo: Will this ban on producers and distributors from throwing away all unsold goods allow you to recover more goods that will be useful to your beneficiaries?
Thierry Robert: We can only congratulate ourselves that what is still consumable does not go to waste reception centers. It is an advantage and something very positive. At the same time, we must take into consideration that we are an association of solidarity which preserves the dignity of people. And we can not let suppose that the poor and the precarious would have only the leftovers to live. It seems important to us to underline this state of affairs. We have been recovering food products for several years now, but we have also been developing quality aid with local producers for several months for access to fresh food products. The same is true for non-food products, which we did at the end of the year celebrations, by allowing children to have new toys. You cannot be in poverty and only have what others no longer want.
What goods do you expect to receive?
We are not here to collect things that families may not need. But anything that can be useful for a family that cannot afford leisure products, clothes, hygiene products, or even furniture or everyday things, are of course welcome. What must be understood is that this approach is tax-exempt for companies that give. And we are recognized as being of public utility. And all this work also requires traceability and logistics management of transport, training for volunteers. And all of that comes at a cost to us as well. Giving also has a financial impact that requires fundraising campaigns.
Is the recovery channel already organized and ready and everything can be done quickly enough?
When the law on food was passed, we had already been volunteering for several years to collect food products. And there, in the same way, we have been recovering for years and years non-food products that are given to us by large-scale distribution or by various and varied companies. We have 1,300 relays throughout France. It is obvious that, relying on volunteering, this can only be done where volunteering is developing. And we always need more people to implement this solidarity. It is not for us something obligatory to receive. We only take it if we are able to manage it, to trace it, to give it in good conditions of dignity to the people who help us and if it is useful for them.