Introduction of regulatory provisions on the practice of the doggy bag in Italy: a first step towards a new anti-waste culture?
by Chiara Cerbone
In the past few weeks, two legislative proposals were presented to the Italian Parliament, aiming at raising awareness on the regulation of food waste in the restaurant industry. Specifically, on January 11th, a legislative proposal was introduced by members of the majority coalition with the goal of introducing the obligation for restaurateurs to invite the customers to take away unconsumed food and beverages from dining establishments. Just a few days earlier, a proposal was presented by opposition members, aiming at promoting, among other measures, the use of the so-called doggy bag.
The expression ‘Doggy Bag’ harks back to a practice present in the USA since the 1940s when, at the initiative of the San Francisco Restaurant Association, restaurateurs in the Californian city began providing their customers, upon request, with bags called "Pet Pakits," which allowed them to take away «any food that he or she was served but had not the appetite to finish» (A. Davidson, T. Jaine, 2014)
Building upon this context, the following reflections will analyze the proposed laws seeking to introduce regulation of this practice into the Italian legal system, framing them, first and foremost, within the broader and diverse framework of initiatives already adopted globally, supranationally, and nationally against food waste, within which the practice of the doggy bag fits.
For a Delimitation of the Phenomenon of Food Waste
Food waste has been among the topics on which, in recent decades, legal doctrine, economists and sociologists have focused their attention, to investigate the causes of this phenomenon and propose solutions to limit its negative effects. These studies have been characterized by the use of analytical methodologies that have produced multiple definitions of food waste (Giannetti V., Boccacci Mariani M., 2018).
Starting from its early Reports on the food security in the world, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - hereinafter FAO - has conducted a work of definitional harmonization that has allowed qualifying the phenomenon of food waste and, at the same time, differentiating it from food loss.
In particular, the term ‘food losses’ refers to the loss of food that occurs in the first two phases of the food chain (food production and distribution) and mainly concerns those foods that, although qualitatively perfect, are discarded before even accessing the market due to not meeting aesthetic standards (Parfitt et al., in Global Food Losses and Food Waste, 2011).
With the term ‘food waste’, on the other hand, we refer to the waste of food that occurs in the following stages of the food chain - food sales and consumption - and concerns those foods that, although ready for consumption, are not consumed (Parfitt et al., in Global Food Losses and Food Waste, 2011) for various reasons including non-purchase before expiration (sometimes caused by the abundance of goods in supermarkets), the decay of such goods within domestic walls, and finally, the non-consumption of what is ordered at restaurants.
According to the latest Report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), food waste concerns approximately 931 million tons of food, with 61% wasted during the domestic consumption phase, 26% during consumption at food services, and finally 13% in stages where food industry is involved as the main character (Mbow et al., 2019;; UNEP, 2021).
These data are of particular concern, especially in light of the increasing percentage of people suffering from hunger worldwide. According to the latest FAO Report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, there are approximately 735 million people experiencing food insecurity, and this situation constitutes what has been aptly named the paradox of scarcity amid abundance: the immense quantity of wasted food contrasts with the significant absence of essential foodstuffs for a significant portion of the world's population (Campiglio and Rovati, 2009).
Research for Solutions to Food Waste: The Role of International and Supranational Organizations
To address this systemic crisis, for over three decades, various international and supranational organizations have proposed not only activities aimed at quantifying and monitoring food waste but also a series of actions aimed at combating it.
Two of the seventeen UN Goals of the United Nations' Agenda 2030 are dedicated to food security and aim at achieving zero hunger (Goal 2) and promoting sustainable models of production and consumption, including food (Goal 12).
Looking at the action of the European Union (where, according to the latest estimates from Eurostat, the amount of food waste is approximately 91 kg per person), Union institutions acted in two directions: on one hand, a framework directive on waste has been adopted, Directive (EU) 2018/851 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018, which, by amending the previous Directive 2008/98/EC, for the first time at the euro-unitary level, defined "food waste". On the other hand, starting from June 28, 2016, and from the Council Conclusions on food loss and food waste, a series of initiatives have been undertaken - among which the most relevant is the Farm to Fork strategy - aimed at reducing food waste by achieving four main objectives: improving the monitoring of food waste; raising awareness among the population for a more conscious use of food resources; improving understanding and use of the indications "best before" and "use by" and finally facilitating the donation of unsold food products to charitable organizations.
The Fight against Food Waste in National Contexts: The Cases of France and Italy
Many individual Member States are undertaking legislative and non-legislative initiatives, adopted by individual Member States following the indications of the European Union. Among these, there are France and Italy.
The first country to approve comprehensive legislation against food waste was France, which in 2016 adopted LOI n° 2016-138 du 11 février 2016 relative à la lutte contre le gaspillage alimentaire, commonly known as the so-called Loi Garot. This law is characterized by the so-defined "command and control" approach (Lattanzi, 2019), which imposes pecuniary sanctions for those retail shops and food distributors that do not comply with the provisions contained therein. Thanks to some amendments made by this law to the Environmental Code, supermarkets with a surface area exceeding 400 square meters were required to enter into agreements for the donation of unsold food with non-profit organizations engaged in the donation of food. Additionally, with the ordinance of October 21, 2019, issued by the French Ministry of Agriculture, this obligation was extended to large-scale retail operators whose turnover exceeded 500 million euros, and finally to restaurants serving more than 3,000 meals per day (Camoni, 2023).
Reference to French legislation is particularly relevant because, even before the adoption of anti-waste regulations, in 2011, with Décret n° 2011-828 du 11 juillet 2011 portant diverses dispositions relatives à la prévention et à la gestion des déchets, various provisions for the prevention and management of waste introduced a recommendation for the use of the doggy bag, which was later replaced by a mandatory requirement that came into force on July 1, 2021 (M. A. Achabou, S. Dekhili, D. Tagbata, 2018).
The offer of the doggy bag to the customer becoming mandatory represented a further step towards limiting waste during the consumption phase in restaurants, which, according to a study by the Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maitrise de l'Energie, accounts for approximately 16% of total food waste in France. This measure aims to address the obstacles that prevent customers from requesting containers, which could be attributed to both the "material" issues related to the doggy bag practice (including hypothetical health risks, perceived low environmental effectiveness, or the cost of packaging) and its "social" issues linked to the embarrassment customers may feel when asking for a container to take leftovers home (M. A. Achabou, S. Dekhili, D. Tagbata, 2018). These obstacles are not only found in French context but also in many European national contexts, including the Italian one.
In Italy, the action against food waste begun in 2003 when, with Legge n. 155 del 16 luglio 2003 “Disciplina della Distribuzione dei prodotti alimentari a fini di solidarietà sociale”, commonly known as Legge del Buon Samaritano (in English: Good Samaritan Law) the legislator aimed at encouraging the donation of food to people in need.
The cultural ferment generated by the celebration of EXPO 2015 "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" in the city of Milan lead to the first Italian anti-waste legislation, Legge 19 agosto 2016, n. 166 “Disposizioni concernenti la donazione e la distribuzione di prodotti alimentari e farmaceutici a fini di solidarietà sociale e per la limitazione degli sprechi”, commonly known as the Legge Gadda.
The Legge Gadda provides regulation of the donation and distribution - free of charge and for solidarity purposes - of various goods, including food. The objective pursued by Italian law is, therefore, the affirmation of a voluntarist model that is achieved through administrative and bureaucratic simplification, the provision of tax reductions for donors, and the definition of the goods that can be donated and the responsibilities of donors and recipients. The valorization of the spontaneous action of individual subjects places the Italian model in a diametrically opposite position to the French model, which, at the time of the approval of the Legge Gadda, was the only one existing in Europe.
However, neither Law No. 155/2003 nor Law No. 66/2016 contain any reference to the recovery of unconsumed food in restaurants.
One could then hypothesize that the bills recently presented in Parliament show the willingness to create an increasingly attentive framework to waste and food sustainability at all stages.
However, the following lines, specifically dedicated to the analysis of the mentioned proposals, show that this theme is still only handled approximatively and not without issues.
The Proposals A.C. 1643 and A.C. 1638
The legislative proposal entitled «Introduzione dell’obbligo di consentire l’asporto di cibi e bevande non consumati dal cliente negli esercizi di ristorazione» (Atto Camera n. 1643), consists of only four articles.
Article 1, entitled "Obligations of catering establishments" introduces the obligation for restaurateurs to allow take-out of unconsumed food and beverages "not consumed on site" providing customers with containers that, if reusable, must be returned to the restaurateur. Alongside this obligation, restaurateurs are required to adequately inform customers about take-out procedures with "clearly visible signs placed in the catering establishment" If the restaurateur does not fulfill these obligations, they will be fined with administrative sanction ranging from 25 to 125 euros (Article 2).
Article 3 grants the costumers the option to use their own container – the hygiene of which they are personally responsible for - subject to compliance with current hygiene and health regulations, which should be verified by the restaurateur. Finally, Article 4 establishes a six-month grace period for the implementation of the law.
Turning now to the analysis of the proposal titled «Disposizioni per la riduzione degli sprechi nel settore della ristorazione attraverso il reimpiego delle eccedenze alimentari nonché incentivi fiscali per la riconversione degli scarti agroalimentari» (Atto Camera n. 1638), it aims to "promote environmental sustainability during production and consumption and to reduce food waste in the catering sector" [...] through "the use of specific containers for take-out of food - referred to as 'food bags' rather than 'doggy bags' - and beverages not consumed by consumers" (Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), the "establishment of a logo usable by commercial establishments adhering to a disciplinary code for developing circular economy in the catering sector and reducing food waste" (Article 1, paragraph 1, letter d), and finally the "implementation of specific information campaigns to promote the network of catering engaged in waste reduction and to encourage consumers to adopt appropriate behaviors and actions for the reduction of agri-food surpluses".
The pursuit of these goals goes along with some broader sustainability objectives concerning the food supply chain, including statal incentives for the conversion of food waste and the valorization of agricultural productions at risk of remaining unsold.
A series of operational measures emerge from the analysis of Article 2, including the "delivery" to customers, upon request, of containers ensuring "food safety and bearing, in written and legible form, instructions for the correct food preservation". These containers will be provided, at no cost to the restaurateur, by the waste management service of the municipality where the establishment is located. Although there is no explicit obligation to provide the "food bag," the proposal provides for a fine of 500 to 1000 euros for the restaurateur who fails to provide adequate information regarding the possibility of taking away unconsumed food.
Finally, in addition to the provisions on the implementation of the law, Article 5 establishes the "sustainable catering" logo, which can be requested by restaurants committing to comply with the disciplinary code prepared by the Permanent Table – “Tavolo permanente” – f or catering and commerce against food waste, an entity established according to the provisions of Article 4 of the proposed law.
The two proposals, although similar in their aims, differ in the methods of achieving the objectives related to limiting food waste. While in the earlier proposal (A.C. 1638), the promotion of the food bag practice is part of a broader set of measures aimed at promoting virtuous behaviors in the food supply chain, the second proposal (A.C. 1645) establishes a clear obligation, subject to penalty, to allow the take-out of unconsumed items.
However, the introduction of a penalty in the proposal under A.C. 1638 makes the provisions comparable in terms of the chosen model, which seems to follow the French example. The debate between the adoption of mandatory provisions and the adoption of the voluntary model of waste reduction (suggested by the Legge Gadda and already shown to be effective in the Italian context) cannot be separated from a broader reflection on the need to raise awareness about the fight against food waste through state regulatory action.
Both proposals aim to raise awareness (and responsibility) of restaurateurs and customers, directing them towards more sustainable behaviors. Nevertheless, this action is only briefly mentioned in proposal A.C. 1638 (which includes among its objectives “the implementation of specific information campaigns to promote the network of catering engaged in waste reduction and to encourage consumers to adopt appropriate behaviors for the reduction of agri-food surpluses” but leaves their realization to the Permanent Table – “Tavolo Permanente” – established without any further indication) and instead, this remains implicitly inferable in the proposal referred to in A.C. 1645.
It might have been appropriate to already plan awareness campaigns in the two texts, which, alongside the regulatory provisions, could have more effectively influenced those "social norms" that still conceal, behind the lack of request for the doggy bag, a certain shame. This embarrassment should instead be transformed into the awareness of making a gesture that contributes to the sustainability of food systems.
For how insignificant the quantity of food that could be "saved" through the regulation of the doggy bag practice may seem, it helps spread affirmation of sustainable behaviors and lifestyles, which is perhaps a more relevant objective in the long run, as it is only through those that one can hope for a future with a significant decrease in (not only) food waste.