The FOS (independent objective press) has been sobbing, grumbling about the new law against food waste these days. The only flaw in the thing is that in France, a eerily similar law was passed in 2016.

Let's look at the facts!

The Hungarian law against food waste stipulates that food must be donated to a charity or the newly established Food Rescue Center 48 hours before the expiration of retail store chains exceeding HUF 100 billion in net sales.

Meanwhile, the French law against food waste of 2016 is at least approx. For supermarkets with an area of ​​420 m2, it stipulates that food must be donated to a charity or central body 48 hours before expiry.

So in summary, but the two are similar? According to libsik, Hungarian law is bad. Is it French then? It cannot be because the Hungarian law is "Zorbán" and the French is "Macron". We did not find a comprehensive description of French law in the Hungarian press, so we only think about the left-liberal reaction to it based on our previous experience.

The point of the new law, then, is to take action against food waste. Once the food’s shelf life has expired, there’s nothing left to save. Currently, supermarkets throw away large quantities of food because they cannot be sold after expiration. Obviously, administrative activity is also involved here. By law, food must be offered for charitable purposes 48 hours before expiration with the help of a non-governmental organization or a central organization. This means that chain stores will pay even more attention to ordering as much food as they can sell. It also means that there will be food on the counter not that expires that day, but that expires in 2-3 days. It is important that if a store donates to established charities, you can still do so. So, in many cases, those in need can get food that we would otherwise have wasted. The amount of food to be produced is also decreasing. It is clear that the stores will not go bad, as they can control the quantity of goods ordered so that they run out of food 2 days before the expiration date if they do not want to make a charitable offer. And they already have the administrative processes to handle expired foods.

In Hungary, we waste 60,000 tons of food every year, of which 10,000 tons reach those in need so far. The purpose of the law is to further increase the latter amount. We hope that after optimizing the processes, the law will be extended to smaller stores.

Source:
https://foodtank.com/news/2019/06/opinion-frances-ban-on-food-waste-three-years-later
https://zerowasteeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Magyar_zwe_11_2020_factsheet_france.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/nagyistvan.movar/videos/1045816922629074/
https://hvg.hu/gazdasag/20211214_eleskeder_pazarlas_elleni_torvenyjavaslat
https://telex.hu/belfold/2021/12/14/eleskederpazarlas-torveny-nagyaruhazak-eleskederlanc-szabalyozas