France's supermarkets have to donate unsold food? At least that's what one sharepic claims and is almost right.
We received inquiries about a Sharepic that claimed France was the first country to require all supermarkets to donate their unsold food to those in need.
It looks like this:

France is the first country to require all supermarkets to give away their unsold food to those in need. Share this if you think the rest of the world should do the same.
The fact check
Well, that's (almost) true. We also had this topic on the table earlier. ( we reported )
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You can easily accuse us of being petty, but it is not true that all supermarkets are obliged to do this. Only supermarkets with at least 400 square meters of retail space have to give away all unsold but still edible food to aid organizations, as reported . Small branches and “mom and pop shops” are not affected by this regulation.
Is this new?
No. We reported on that law back in 2015 At that time, however, it was still a draft law that failed due to a procedural error; the law only came into force February 2016
Does it do anything?
The “ npr.org ” website took a closer look at the effects after almost two years in February 2018. It is described that around 5,000 food banks and aid organizations throughout France rely on food donations, around half of which now come from supermarkets.
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The new law has increased both the quantity and quality of donated food, and much more food is still far from its expiration date.
“Share this if…”
It would all have been so well and good if the above statement had simply been written in the picture. Unfortunately, we have another typical case of emotional blackmail here. Anyone who likes the fact of food donations will like it anyway and maybe share it. Why does it always have to be asked for in pictures? Would it change anything about the practices in this country if the picture was shared often enough?
No, not at all. No government thinks “Oh… that picture was shared a lot! We have to do something!”. Petitions or direct letters to members of the state and federal parliaments help, but no picture on Facebook.
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In this respect, we consider this constantly repeated request to share to be counterproductive. Simply because there are a lot of fake pictures or real pictures with fake texts that come with “Share this if…” and subliminally tell you: “If you don’t share this, then you’re heartless!” So it's no wonder that we received inquiries about the image, as users almost automatically distrust an image that absolutely needs to be shared.
Conclusion
The statement is mostly correct. Since 2016, larger supermarkets in France have been required to donate unsold food to aid organizations instead of throwing it away.
Article image: Shutterstock / By Sorbis
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

