New Jersey is already considered a leader when it comes to combating food insecurity and hunger.

Now two Democratic lawmakers want to create a new pipeline to ensure more food waste, instead makes it onto the kitchen table by requiring some grocers and food suppliers to donate eligible food to local food banks and pantries.

Raven Santana has the story.

Each year, millions of pounds of food go to waste rather than surplus food, reaching the more than 800,000 people in New Jersey who are facing hunger.

It's often tossed in the trash.

Sad reality is that around the United States, 40% of food goes uneaten.

That's why assembly man Bill Moen is introducing a bill to require certain supermarkets, grocery stores and food suppliers to donate consumable food that would have otherwise been discarded.

The legislation cleared the Assembly Health Committee.

I think when we when we boil this down to, I think a very micro-level, every meal that we can rescue from disposal is a step towards New Jersey, figuring out how we are building that sustainable future, Moen says.

The goal is to ensure entities make a reasonable effort to donate excess food to various food banks, nonprofit organizations and New Jersey residents.

To me, again, it's a no brainer that we have supermarkets in New Jersey that are doing this now and are helping to fix this.

The goal here is to just make sure that the rest of them in, again, in a reasonable effort, are doing the same thing.

Currently, it is not a requirement for food suppliers to donate while Moen has referred to the bill as a no brainer.

Not everyone is on board.

The president and CEO of the New Jersey Food Council, Linda Dougherty, released a statement opposing the bill, saying, We have concerns about this legislation because there are circumstances that create barriers to donation.

Some food retailers do not generate a large volume of surplus food that is suitable for donation.

And the food pantries generally do not consider partnering with these retailers to be the best use of their resources.

Some grocers and convenience stores have surplus prepared food, which is generally not able to be donated due to food safety issues.

Retail food donations are already a large and really significant part of the food supply that fulfill and our sister food banks across the state and country rely on.

Triada Stampas is the president and CEO of Fulfill Food Bank and serves about 300 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other community distribution programs within Ocean and Monmouth Counties.

Despite some concerns, Stampas is in full support of the legislation.

Last year we received about £5 million of food donations from all sources, but 70% of our donated food was from local retailers.

From all of the grocery chains and the supermarkets that are in our communities that serve our shoppers, she says.

The food donation partnership between local food retailers and Fulfill Food bank have been a win win.

We are seeing almost 100,000 pantry visitors a month across our two counties.

We have never seen numbers like that before.

Stamp says while she is concerned about food safety from these surplus donations, she is confident that current food safety guidelines will help prevent that.

Supermarkets have policies.

They clear the shelves when things get close to that Best Buy date or sell by date.

Much of that food is still able to be eaten perfectly good, just not able to be sold by that supermarket.

Not marketable for them.

Morgan says he's welcoming stakeholders to the table to make the bill better, and especially those who are concerned.

It creates potential barriers.

The bill has been referred to the Food Security Committee.

He now hopes it will be posted for consideration in the near future and passed by the summer.

For NJ spotlight News.

I'm Raven Santana.