Convenience Store Food Donation Project to Start in Fiscal 2025; Food That Is Edible But Past Sell-By Date To Be Offered to Those in Need

The Yomiuri Shimbun

2:00 JST, January 25, 2025

The Consumer Affairs Agency in FY2025 will start a demonstration project using convenience store food that is still edible but no longer sellable, which will be offered free of charge to those who cannot afford to buy amid rising prices.

The project will also aim to reduce food loss from retailers such as convenience stores, a waste which now reaches nearly 500,000 tons a year.

The items to be offered free of charge include boxed lunches, sandwiches, sweets and others that have passed their sell-by dates, which are set by each convenience store chain operator.

The sell-by date marks the point in time when the product is to be replaced or disposed of and is set earlier, by anything from a few days to two hours, than its consume-by date, or the date until which it is considered safe to consume, and the best-before date, or the date until which its expected level of quality can be maintained adequately when stored properly.

Therefore, there is no problem with consuming these food items a few days later than their sell-by dates, in terms of both quality and safety.

In this project, when sandwiches on the shelf, for example, reach their sell-by date, for instance, a store clerk will register them on a dedicated app with an attached photo, labeled “5 sandwiches,” and notify those who are eligible to receive them free of charge and live near the store (within a 350-meter radius).

Those who wish to receive them will be able to obtain coupons on a first-come, first-served basis and go to the store to pick them up.

According to the agency, this free food will be offered to people such as those living in households that are exempt from residential tax or those who receive child support allowances.

To receive notifications from the stores, people must register with a dedicated app linked to their Individual Number Cards.

The project will start around July at three convenience stores in three ordinance-designated major cities.

The agency will make sure the program is totally fair, including in terms of the range of people who are eligible for it and the first-come, first-served method of distributing the food, and then draft a manual for running it. The agency hopes to expand this initiative to convenience stores across the country.

According to a survey conducted in 2023 by the Tokyo-based national council to promote food banks, which supports the activities of food bank organizations in various parts of the country, about 80% of its 58 member organizations reported an increase in requests for food aid due to rising prices of commodities, while 40% of them reported a decline in the amount of food they received from donors.

Hiroaki Yoneyama, representative director of the council, said, “It would be encouraging if convenience store chain operators, which have stores across the country, would join the circle of support.”

Meanwhile, according to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, the food retail industry generated 490,000 tons of food loss and waste in FY2022.

A survey conducted in 2020 by the Japan Fair Trade Commission showed that 18.9 onigiri (rice balls) and 5.2 bento (lunch boxes) were disposed of per convenience store per day, with the cost of disposal totaling \4.68 million annually.

Tomio Kobayashi, a professor at Japan Women’s University and scholar on food system theory, rates the planned project highly, saying, “We can expect it to do well as a system to provide food assistance to those in need while at the same time reducing food loss.”

However, he also points out, “It is necessary to devise a way to keep this from warping proper commercial processes. Consideration must also be given to the psychological burden on those who will be receiving food in person.”