"We've already been fighting against waste," she says. "But if the law allows others to follow our example, why not?"

Not all French supermarkets boast similar practices. The average store is believed to throw away roughly 20 kilos of unsold food each day. Some have reportedly poured bleach on products, rendering them inedible – ostensibly to avoid food poisoning and legal problems.

"The situation is very simple," says Arash Derambarsh, a municipal councillor in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie. "On the one hand, we have supermarkets that throw away kilos of unsold food every day. On the other, faced with this absurdity, we have millions of poor and homeless people."