Some Grocers Reluctant To Donate Food

Although most supermarket chains participate in hunger-relief programs, liability concerns severely limit the amount of surplus food that they donate to the needy.

As a result, vast amounts of food go to waste across the state, an examination by California Watch and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at University of Southern California found.

Fearing liability if someone were to get severely ill, major retail grocery chains and restaurants are more likely to throw away meats, fruits and vegetables than donate to distribution centers.

Just ask John Wadginski, who is still bothered by the amount of food he discarded nightly while working in the delicatessen at a Safeway store in Davis.

“I had to throw out 10-pound hams that weren’t even touched,” said Wadginski, now 24. “It was easily 50 pounds of food a night.”

Wadginski volunteered to take the surplus to a local shelter, but his supervisors declined his request.
“They told me no because if anything happened, they would be liable,” Wadginski said.

Such attitudes prevail despite state and federal laws in place for more than a decade that protect businesses and individuals from liability should recipients become ill from food donations, experts said.

Since the only exceptions are gross negligence or intentional misconduct, a plaintiff would have to prove that a donor intentionally tried to harm another with a contribution of food they knew to be unsafe.

“Many of them don’t understand,” said Arlene Mercer, founder of Food Finders in Long Beach, which collects donations from supermarkets and restaurants for distribution to food pantries.

“We try to educate them that they are protected by the good Samaritan laws and our insurance and that neither have ever been challenged.”

Some donations made

Waste from supermarkets is one of the big contributors, along with farms and restaurants, to an estimated 6 million tons of edible food in California alone that ends up in the trash.

Most grocery chains participate in some sort of hunger-relief program, but may limit their donations to bakery items – the kind of foods organizations need the least.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Contra Costa Times