France Could Suffer ‘Significant’ Food Spoilage Due to Power Cuts

A federation of French supermarket chains has warned of significant waste of fresh products in the event of possible power cuts in the country this winter, with those in rural areas much more likely to face outages.

Franck Charton, general delegate of Perifem, a French federation of supermarket chains, explained that companies are already preparing for power outages over the winter months and while they should be notified the day prior to any planned outages at 9:30 p.m., Charton said the time is too short for them to react.

According to Charton, shops will be forced to have “preventative closures” that could lead to a significant level of waste of fresh products, broadcaster France Info reports.

“We have never experienced this situation… stores are very poorly equipped today with generators. We will not throw away frozen products that have for the most part more thermal inertia. On the other hand, for fresh products that do not last two hours, there will indeed be a significant waste,” Charton said.  – READ MORE