What better option is there for fast-casual restaurants than donating leftover food to people who need it, rather than throwing it away?
Some fast casuals count donation as a good option for disposing of leftover food, but industry insiders say municipal safety regulations keep donations from growing into a widespread practice.
Even so, fast-casual restaurants are participating with donations to food bank organizations more than ever before.
Fast casuals have always donated money and food for charity fundraisers but donating rescued food — leftover food that has been prepared but not served — is a growing trend, particularly with the national emphasis on going green, said Joanne Dwyer, director of
Food Sourcing for Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.
The Regional Food Bank often works with local proprietors of Orlando, Fla.-based Darden Restaurants Inc. as well as some fast food restaurants on rescued food, which it then delivers to soup kitchens and veterans' homes in northeast New York. Dwyer said chicken and other foods that freeze well are the best option for rescued foods.
Fast casuals such as Starbucks and Au Bon Pain have led the way on rescued-food donations, working locally with nonprofits like City Harvest for many years.
"We have a program called ‘Food for Life' that tries to help feed those in need," said Ed Frechette, vice president of marketing for Au Bon Pain. "One aspect of Food for Life is to donate leftover baked goods at the end of the day to local shelters. It is coordinated at the local café level in conjunction with local organizations. They tend to be right in our neighborhoods."
City Harvest, New York City's only food-rescue program, has worked for years with several fast-casual restaurants, said Sandy Diaz-Hayes, City Harvest's director of Food Development.
"Au Bon Pain has been part of the City Harvest family of donors since 1990 and donated over 72,000 pounds of food last year alone," Diaz-Hayes said.
Starbucks has given food to City Harvest "for more than a decade" and donated nearly 40,000 pounds of food in 2007, she said.
While the trend is still growing, a slew ofother fast-casual restaurants are considering donating rescued food.
Corner Bakery Café is currently "in talks" with Share Our Strength, a food-bank organization dedicated to eradicating child hunger in the United States, about establishing a program, said Seth Grugle, spokesman for Corner Bakery Café.
Enough to go around
Frechette said there can be downsides to food rescue programs. One of Au Bon Pain's concerns is there is no fixed amount of food to be donated each day, leaving little security for the nonprofit.
"Whatever is left at the end of the day is what is available, so the organization can not count on a specific quantity of loaves of breads or baked goods," he said.
An impediment to food banks accepting donated foods also can be the cost of transporting the items, which has been aggravated by the rising cost of fuel, Frechette said. In most cases, the nonprofit organization both picks up and delivers rescued food.
"With few exceptions, we cannot bring the food to an organization," he said. "They need to come to us to pick it up, and many of these organizations do not have reliable transportation on hand to pick these items up."
Dwyer's staff picks up and delivers all of its rescued food on a weekly basis. But the key hurdle to rescued food donations is by far the inconvenience of navigating city regulations for food safety, which vary from location to location, said Ross Fraser, spokesman for the non-profit America's Second Harvest.
"Food rescue is generally handled at the local level because there are a number of laws and regulations by state and city," Fraser said.
PhilAbundance, a DelawareValley based non-profit organization that tackles hunger, doesn't do many pick-ups of rescued or left-over foods "due to food safety handling guidelines," said Marlo DelSordo, a PhilAbundance spokeswoman.
There are federal guidelines established to limit liability on rescued food. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act promotes food recovery by limiting the liability of donors to instances of gross negligence or intentional misconduct. Although the law takes precedence over the various state forms of Good Samaritan statutes, it may not entirely replace such statutes.
Despite those hardships, restaurants realize they can either pay to dump food or "pay" to donate it, said Dwyer.
"It's not to anyone's advantage to throw food away," she said. "If it's good products, it can be used for someone else, and that's a good thing."
