Beijing enacts anti-food waste regulation: newspaper

BEIJING, China, May 31 – Catering service providers in Beijing who encourage, mislead or force consumers to order too much food may face fines of up to 10,000 yuan (about 1,570 U.S. dollars), China Daily reported Monday, citing a regulation passed by the municipal legislature.

The regulation, aimed at preventing food waste and promoting a simple, green and low-carbon life-style, came into effect after being adopted at a session of the municipal legislature last week.

According to the new regulation, catering service providers should not set a minimum consumption amount and should clearly state service items and their charging standards.

It said food delivery platforms should remind consumers to order the proper amount of food. Catering service providers that provide food through online platforms should indicate necessary information on webpages to promote smaller meals or set meal options.

Those who violate the regulation and refuse to rectify their behavior will face fines ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 yuan.

Chinese lawmakers in April voted to adopt an anti-food waste law. The law, designed to help establish a long-term mechanism to prevent food waste, is vital to ensure national food security.

XINHUA

Xinhua News Agency, founded on November 7, 1931, is China’s national news agency as well as a global news and information network. Xinhua has set up a global news and information gathering network, with headquarters in Beijing, 33 domestic bureaus in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities plus the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as 140 bureaus in the rest of the world. Xinhua is yet to set up a bureau in Taiwan, where it has posted resident correspondents. Xinhua provides its worldwide subscribers with news and financial information products in the forms of text, photo, graphics, audio, video, and mobile phone text messages 24 hours a day in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.