Why Restaurants and Grocers Don’t Donate Food

Five Things I Learned When I Got Sued (for something completely unrelated)

Food waste is rightly described as the world’s dumbest problem:

We throw away something like half of the food we produce while agribusiness and biotech simultaneously insist we need to drive up yields and over-engineer our food in order to feed the world.

One of the favorite targets of food activists are businesses that throw away excess or expired food at the end of the day instead of donating it. Some of them throw it out because of the logistical and staffing challenges associated with getting food donated properly, but most of them — especially those dealing in perishable items — are simply afraid of the liability involved if someone gets sick.

Activists will respond that no one has ever been sued for donating food, and that food donors are protected by the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act, which means that the idea of being sued for donating food is a myth and an excuse that businesses use to not be bothered enough to the right thing.