New food waste bill to facilitate bringing unfinished food home from restaurants

The Catalan parliament has passed a new bill on food waste, which among other things, forces restaurants to make it easier for a customer to take away any unfinished food in a container. 

“Restaurants and hotels will have to provide a way for customers to bring unfinished food home with them in biodegradable, recyclable containers, and without cost,” Raúl Moreno, member of a Socialist parliamentary group, who tabled the bill in the first place, said in the chamber. 

The law also urges food companies to incentivize the sale of products with an expiration date coming soon, and stipulates that social entities that distribute food must keep them in optimum condition. 

The new regulations also say that non-edible remains are to be put to use in other ways, such as the production of compost or biogas, and include the basis for a regulation on the picking of fruit not deemed suitable to eat. 

According to the MP, the law should be "an end to the embarrassment of customers of taking away their unfinished food." However he also argues that "it is not the take-away containers law" because it goes further and reducing it to this measure "is not the spirit of the law."

In the parliamentary address, he also claimed that this is a "pioneering law in Spain and the first European law involving all actors in the food chain."

The bill was passed unanimously in the chamber, although there were a few amendments made to it by other groups.