It's Bank Holiday Monday,
I was just about to cook some lunch before going out, and then right now this
article just landed in my inbox - it's a campaign for David Cameron to make
supermarkets hand over all unsold food to charities.
This is as a result of what's
happening in France, where a group of French MPs have tabled a draft law to
make it compulsory for supermarkets to hand over to charity all unsold food
still fit for consumption.
It's a noble idea, surely?
I mean, if there is one thing the State can be good for it is in gently nudging
socially desirable preferences in the right direction, right? I can go along
with that: I do actually want much more to be done for good causes, and a nudge
that compels big supermarket corporations to do more for charities is no bad
thing in principle, and full of good intentions.
However, in practice this
is problematical, because when you legally compel businesses to behave a
certain way over and above what they are in business for you then impose extra costs on them, such as extra labour and extra
resources to collect, store and administer the goods - and those costs end up
filtrating into other areas of society. Such enforcement will have spillover
costs that are, at present, invisible to the government officials enforcing
this.
Will the governments that
enforce this law contribute towards all these extra costs, plus the additional
costs of refrigeration for both the charities and the supermarkets? But perhaps
even more disconcerting is the likelihood that with this potentially oppressive
legislation the State then has the power to penalise shops who don't give their
quota to charity, meaning threats of fines will affect supermarkets' buying
habits (buying artificially low, keeping stocks at a minimum to avoid wastage, etc)
which then has a knock on effect of lower prices, which hurts employees,
manufactures, delivery drivers, and maybe even farmers too.
It may even be the case that
in not enforcing a supermarket food-donation system that will only increase the
supply of free food we avoid creating an unhelpful dependency food welfare,
rather like how in not giving money to beggars we do more good for them in the
long run.
All that said, it is easy
to see why such a campaign is growing in popularity (over 100,000 signatures at
the time of writing) - tonnes of perfectly edible food is literally being
thrown out on a weekly basis across the country, and this needs to change. I
once heard a manager of a supermarket say that the main reason they didn't give
thrown out food to the homeless is that they were afraid of being sued in the event
of someone getting ill. Would a government that passed this food-donation law allow
an 'eat at your own risk' mandate to stand for those consuming the leftover
food? I seriously doubt it. It's all very well politicians having these noble ideas, but so often
they aren't thought through properly, and I suspect here is another fine
example of that.
There definitely is a square hole
problem of food shortage in this country, and a square peg solution of lots of
thrown away food in supermarkets available to be consumed, but I'm not sure
this proposed government law is the solution. What we need is more innovation
in getting people to give generously, more awareness raised, and more
government-led investment that can help the poorest and vulnerable in society
get back on their feet and find work.
