'They Collected What Was Left of the Scraps': Food Surplus as an Opportunity and Its Legal Incentives

Abstract

For many years the problem of food security has been addressed only in relation to developing countries, due to the fact that people in developed nations had a relatively abundant supply of food. This is not anymore true both because of the economic crisis and an increasing demand of food at the global level. Therefore, food surplus in the food chain both at the production level and at household consumption could become a resource. In this respect, legal rules (e.g., the Good Samaritan Act in the United States) may provide incentives to economic agents for recovering food surplus. This paper examines in a comparative way legal remedies provided by United States and European Union to address food surplus. Some suggestions are provided to further improve the systems as well.

Keywords: Food surplus, Food waste, Good Samaritan Act, Food security

JEL Classification: Q18, K13, K32, I18, I30