California legislature passes two food waste bills

The California state legislature recently passed two bills designed to offer solutions to some of the leading causes of wasted food.

Assembly Bill (AB) 1219, known as the California Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, authored by Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman (D- Stockton), expands a 1977 law that protects food donors from legal liability to encourage food donations. The bill also requires health inspectors to promote donation and educate restaurants and grocery stores about these liability protections.

“Reducing food insecurity is an achievable goal. My bill will cut down the amount of food ending up in landfills by encouraging donors to help hungry Californians,” says Eggman.

“Getting food to people who need it is the highest and best use of food that would have otherwise been sent to a landfill,” says Melissa Romero, policy associate for Californians Against Waste, nonprofit organization dedicated to the development, promotion and implementation of waste reduction and recycling policies and programs based in Sacramento. “The requirements of this bill will dispel the myth that food donors can be sued and send a strong signal that good food should never go to waste.”

AB 954, authored by Assemblymember David Chiu (D- San Francisco), promotes the use of uniform phrases for food expiration dates to reduce the estimated 20 percent of consumer food waste that comes from the misinterpretation of date labels. This bill will help narrow the number of confusing phrases used (including “best by,” “best before,” “sell by,” “enjoy by”, “expires” and others) down to two terms: a peak freshness date, when food is likely to taste best, and a safety date, when food may be unsafe to eat. AB 954 would also discourage the use of consumer-visible sell-by dates that are misleading and wasteful.

“Every day we open our refrigerators and wonder what the dates on our food mean,” says Chiu. “In a state where 6 million families are food insecure, a startling amount of food is being wasted every single day because of arbitrary date labels. Consumers deserve to know what our labels mean and whether or not our food is safe to eat. This bill mirrors industry best practices and moves us closer to uniform date labels, which will reduce unnecessary food waste.”

“Many cautious consumers see these dates and toss out perfectly healthy and wholesome food just because it is past the date on the package,” says Nick Lapis, director of advocacy at Californians Against Waste. “Promoting consistent terminology for date labels will give consumers confidence that they’re food is safe to eat and may not need to be thrown out.”

Californians Against Waste sponsored AB 954 and cosponsored AB 1219 with the California Association of Food Banks. The final vote for AB 954 was 33-6 in the senate and 79-0 in the assembly. The final vote for AB 1219 was 39-0 in the senate and 79-0 in the assembly. Both bills must now be approved by Gov. Jerry Brown by the Oct. 15 deadline.