Countering food waste
Penalties for food sellers for its wasting and the imposition on the big stores of the obligation of free food delivery for social purposes are the assumptions of the Senate draft law on counteracting food waste.
Surely, 81 senators voted on the bill to the Sejm, one was against, no one abstained from voting. The draft assumes that for every kilo of wasted food the vendors would pay 10 gr of the fee. The fees are to be transferred to non-governmental organizations that will be able to allocate them for tasks related to with social help, support and charity. In the event of failure to provide a fee or to provide it in incomplete amount, the seller would be subject to a penalty of PLN 500 to PLN 10,000. If the fee does not exceed PLN 200, you will not need to pay it. The project foresees stores with an area of more than 250 square meters, in which revenues from the sale of foodstuffs account for at least 50%. revenues from all goods will be required to enter into an agreement with a non-governmental organization regarding free transfer of food to social purposes. In the event of failure to do so, a fine of 5,000 will be imposed on the seller. In the two years since the announcement of the act, its provisions would apply to food sellers in stores with a sales area above 400 m2. The project provides for food sellers to run educational and information campaigns in the field of preventing food waste. These campaigns are to be run jointly with the organization with which the seller has concluded an agreement on free food delivery. It will be possible to spend no more than 20 percent on running it. funds from the fee. The justification indicates that currently there is no regulation in Poland to counter food waste. The only convenience in this respect are favorable tax regulations. From the data of the Polish Federation of Food Banks, it appears that in 2015, 65,000 were delivered through Polish food banks. tons of food (excluding 81 thousand tons of fruit and vegetables covered by the Russian embargo transferred to food banks by farmers), of which only 1.4 thous. tons came from donations from retail chains. In 2016, the amount of food transferred to banks increased to 92.7 thousand. tonnes, of which distributors gave 4.7 thousand tone.
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