Law 1/2025 of 1 April on the prevention of food losses and food waste (Spanish Official Gazette no. 80, 2 April 2025) is Spain's first national law dedicated specifically to food losses and food waste, and it contains direct obligations for hospitality and contract catering. The mandatory measures of its Article 6 apply from 2 April 2026, one year after publication. This article summarises what the legal text requires, from whom, and what it means in practice for a professional kitchen.
Who is covered
Article 2 covers every agent of the food chain on Spanish territory: production, processing, distribution, hospitality and restaurants. Article 3(e) expressly adds "other food service providers": healthcare centres, schools, prisons, social-services residences and, in general, every permanent establishment offering catering or a canteen service.
Two important exemptions, both in Article 6: micro-enterprises (fewer than ten persons and up to €2 million turnover or balance sheet, Art. 3.f) are excluded from that article's obligations (Art. 6.6), and so are hospitality or restaurant premises of 1,300 m² or less (Art. 6.4.c), unless several premises under the same tax number together exceed that area. In practice the prevention plan binds hotels, chains, contract caterers and large institutions; the small independent restaurant is outside that specific duty; the Article 8 duty (take-away containers), by contrast, has no threshold or size exemption.
The four obligations
1. Priority hierarchy (Art. 5). Every agent must first prevent; for surplus that could not be prevented: donation for human consumption, then animal feed, then industrial by-product. Only "as a last resort, already as waste": recycling (compost or digestate) and, where that is not possible, energy recovery. Failing to apply this hierarchy without justification is a minor infringement (Art. 20.2.a.1).
2. Prevention plan (Art. 6.4.a). A plan describing how the hierarchy is applied at the premises. Operators present in several autonomous communities may file one integrated plan. Not having a plan when required is a serious infringement (Art. 20.2.b.1).
3. Donation agreements (Arts. 6.4.b and 7). Promote agreements with social organisations or food banks, with a defined minimum content; contract clauses that prevent donation are void (Art. 6.3).
4. The customer's right to take food home (Art. 8). Every hospitality business must let the customer take uneaten food home at no extra charge (other than, where applicable, the mandatory charge for single-use plastic containers under Law 7/2022), except at all-you-can-eat buffets or similar formats, and must say so visibly, preferably on the menu. Containers must be food-safe and reusable or easily recyclable. This duty has no size threshold.
Penalties (Art. 21)
Minor: warning or fine up to €2,000. Serious: €2,001 to €60,000. Very serious: €60,001 to €500,000. Repetition within two years turns a minor infringement into a serious one and a serious one into a very serious one (Art. 20.2.b.3 and c). Autonomous communities may raise these thresholds. For minor infringements the inspector may grant a period to remedy (Art. 22).
What the law does not resolve: the fraction that cannot be donated
The law is written for food fit for human consumption. But a substantial part of what leaves a professional kitchen never was: peelings, bones, shells, coffee grounds, plate scrapings. That fraction is not prevented by better planning and cannot be donated; under the law's own Article 5 hierarchy it reaches the "waste" step, where Law 7/2022 (Art. 25) already requires separate collection of bio-waste, phased in during 2022–2023 depending on municipality size.
For that fraction there are two practical consequences. The first is measurement: a prevention plan needs a diagnosis and indicators, and both require weighing what is generated, not estimating it. Griffon digesters have a built-in scale that records every charge, so the mass data accumulate with daily operation. The second is treatment: aerobic digestion at the point of origin decomposes the residues continuously into water, carbon dioxide and dissolved compounds; the filtered liquid is discharged through the existing drain, with discharge conditions confirmed with the local water operator, and nothing solid remains to be stored or collected. Statistically, residues treated on site still count as food waste generated; what disappears is the bin, the collection and the transport. The measured carbon footprint is about 21.4 kg CO2e per tonne treated, against roughly 346 kg CO2e for thermal dehydration (University of Zagreb, Faculty of Geotechnical Engineering, 2022).
Checklist for a kitchen
- Do the premises (or all premises under the same tax number) exceed 1,300 m², and is the business not a micro-enterprise? Then the prevention plan and donation agreements are mandatory from 2 April 2026.
- In every case: take-away containers and visible information on the menu (Art. 8).
- Weigh everything leaving the kitchen for two weeks, separating avoidable from unavoidable. It is the basis of the plan's diagnosis and the one figure an inspector cannot dispute.
- Decide what happens to the unavoidable fraction: bin and collection, or treatment at source.
Related: the binding EU targets · Eurostat 2024: 129 kg per person · dehydrator vs digester · sizing calculator.
Sources: Law 1/2025 of 1 April on the prevention of food losses and food waste (BOE-A-2025-6597), Articles 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 20, 21, 22 and twentieth final provision; Law 7/2022 of 8 April on waste and contaminated soils, Articles 25 and 55; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Geotechnical Engineering, 2022. This text is informational and does not replace legal advice.