The Guardian reports that the law was passed as part of another law in May 2015, but it was subsequently annulled by France's constitutional court because of procedural failures.

The law was reintroduced on Wednesday 9 December 2015 and passed by members of the Assemblée Nationale with support from across all political parties.

The law will make it illegal for supermarkets in France to destroy food that is still fit for consumption and thereby force retailers to give away unsold food that has reached its sell-by-date.

Investment would need to be made in the area of infrastructure, including transport vehicles so the charities are able to come and collect the food

It came into effect on Wednesday 13 January, after being rubberstamped by the Senat, the upper house of the French parliament.

There is no law in Ireland that forbids the destruction of unsold supermarket food that is still fit for human consumption. However, many food businesses in Ireland work on a voluntary basis with a initiatives that facilitate the re-distribution of surplus food from retailers to charities.

Under-resourced charities

Two of the most prominent of these initiatives are FoodCloud and the Bia Food Initiative, both of which connect retailers to charities.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Iseult Ward, the CEO of FoodCloud, said it would be "great" to see a similar law introduced in Ireland. However, she said the introduction of the law without corresponding investment in charities would put huge pressure on the sector as many Irish charities are under-resourced.

"Investment would need to be made in the area of infrastructure, including transport vehicles so the charities are able to come and collect the food," she said.

"Also, in order to cope with the increased amount of food, charities would need bigger freezers than the ones they have now. So a bit of thought would have to go into the logistics of how to distribute the larger quantities of food before such a law was introduced."

FoodCloud currently works with over 150 food stores, which include those of Tesco and Aldi. Ward said other major food retailers have expressed an interest in signing up to the scheme and some are due to come on board later in 2016.

Over the course of 2015, FoodCloud facilitated the donation of 1.2m meals (567t of food) to 325 different charities. "We have been overwhelmed by the positive response from the food industry since we set up FoodCloud in 2013," Ward added.

An estimated 1m tonnes of food is wasted per annum across Ireland, 30% of which is wasted in domestic households. The estimated figure for across the European Union is 100m tonnes, while an estimated 1.3bn tonnes are wasted worldwide.

Eurobarometer survey on food waste

According to a recent Eurobarometer survey on food waste, Irish people, in common with most Europeans, think that consumers have to take a lot of the blame. Some 71% of us think that individual consumers play an important role in preventing food waste. Next in line are hotels, restaurants and other food service outlets, with 52% of Irish respondents pointing the finger at them.

While almost half of Europeans think the public sector has to play its part, just 28% of Irish people share this view.

Most Irish people emphasise individual responsibility when it comes to how to reduce food waste, with many saying better shopping and meal planning would help.