VotedBy VotedBy ⌕
Election Day · Tue, Nov 3See how your members of Congress voted →

S. 3108 · 114th Congress

Food Recovery Act of 2016

Key: what the circles and colors mean

Each circle is a bill. The ring fills as it moves through Congress:

IntroducedPassed one chamberPassed both chambersBecame law (gold)Resolution agreed to (full, dark)Failed or vetoed (gray)

Under the number: the Yea · Nay count of its final (or latest) recorded vote. On a member's page, the small badge is how that member voted: Y Yea / Aye, N Nay / No, P Present, – Not voting.

Gold and violet are only for Yea and Nay; they never mean a party. A member's party is the letter on their photo.

Never voted on. It didn't reach a floor vote before the 114th Congress ended, so it expired. A bill has to be introduced again to be considered in a new Congress.

4 cosponsors · 4 D

4 signed on when it was introduced; the rest joined later. Cosponsors who withdrew aren't shown.

This bill provides funding and establishes requirements to reduce food waste and standardize date labeling on food.

What it does: CRS summary · Introduced in Senate · Jun 29, 2016

Food Recovery Act of 2016

This bill provides funding and establishes requirements to reduce food waste and standardize date labeling on food.

The bill expands and establishes grant and loan programs to:

  • raise awareness about wasted food and food recovery efforts to reduce the quantity of wasted food,
  • improve cooperation between agricultural producers and emergency feeding organizations,
  • assist schools in using food from farms that would otherwise go to waste and providing farms with compostable materials, and
  • install facilities that include composting or anaerobic digesters that use food or crop waste to produce energy.

The bill provides funds for: (1) state storage and distribution costs under the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and (2) media campaigns to decrease food waste.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) must establish an Office of Food Recovery to coordinate programs to measure and reduce food waste.

The bill specifies that composting is eligible for support under USDA's conservation programs.

Companies that receive federal food service contracts must donate surplus food to nonprofit organizations that assist food-insecure people.

Food Date Labeling Act of 2016

Producers, manufacturers, distributors, or retailers that place a date label on food packaging of a product must use the phrases "best if used by" to indicate food quality and the phrase "expires on" to warn of food that may be unsafe to eat after a specified date.

Labelers may include a quality date on packaging, but must include a safety date on ready-to-eat products.

No one may prohibit the sale, donation, or use of a product after the quality date for the product has passed.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov

About this bill and sources

Official title: Food Recovery Act of 2016

Latest action (Jun 29, 2016): Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

Policy area: Agriculture and Food · Origin: Senate · Introduced: Jun 29, 2016

Official page on Congress.gov · Bill text (GovInfo) · Status record (XML)

No recorded floor vote found.