Dispelling the restaurant leftovers myth

After the dinner rush is over at the Asheville Pizza and Brewing Co. and the pint glasses are put away, there's usually not much food to go around.

But should there be a surplus of slices or leftover salad from the lunch buffet, workers at the nearby Bruegger's Bagels and other Merrimon Avenue businesses generally reap the benefits.

Owner Mike Rangel said he wishes he had a way to donate that food to those who need it more.

Rangel lives under the assumption that prepared food cannot be donated to shelters and food banks. "As far as we know, we can't serve pre-cooked food and donate it," he said.

He's not alone in his belief. Katie Button, co-owner of Nightbell and Curate in Asheville, also lives under the impression that what little food is left over from her busy restaurants must be either given to employees or thrown away.

"I'm not in the situation where I'm trying to figure out how how to get rid of surplus food often, but it is my understanding that I cannot donate leftover food, whether that's correct or incorrect," she said.

Good Samaritan laws signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton protect restaurant owners like Rangel — those who, with the best of intentions, want to feed people in need.

But for whatever reason, the word still hasn't gotten out.

"I think there would be a lot of restaurants who would love to know about that," Rangel said. "No one likes to waste food and, in Foodtopia, there should be no food waste when someone's hungry just three miles away."

Flori Pate, creator of Food Connection, a local service that works to deliver restaurant leftovers to shelters and soup kitchens, hears sentiments similar to Rangel's and Button's all of the time.

"I work with restaurants and caterers all the time and I am shocked every day that no one knows about this," she said. "Or they say, 'Oh that must be new.' But it's been around for almost 20 years and, that people don't know about it is unfortunate."

Pate is working to change that.

Her nonprofit has donated more than 9,000 nutritious meals over the past year to partners including after-school programs at Hall Fletcher, Beacon of Hope in Madison County, East Asheville Welcome Table at Groce United Methodist Church and the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry.

To deliver protein- and vegetable-rich meals, Food Connection works with several local restaurants, including Pack's Tavern, Chestnut and the Lexington Avenue Brewery, all of which follow proper ServSafe protocol to pack and label at least 18 portions of leftover food.

A worker or manager of the restaurant then sends a text to Food Connection, and Asheville Taxi sends a driver to pick up the food.

"When Asheville Taxi gets a text from us that there's a food connection, they bump us to the top of the dispatch list so that we can get the food where it needs to be immediately," Pate explained.

Much of that leftover food comes from about 10 local restaurants and caterers, though some comes from UNC Asheville. But the food the service collects is just a drop in the bucket in the scheme of Asheville's food waste, much of which ends up in the local landfill.

"I do think that it's incredibly unfortunate that the misconception is that the only alternative is to compost this food that was cooked two hours ago and didn't get eaten, and that's really not the case," Pate said.

Food waste is a larger problem than many realize.

In traditional landfills, anaerobic conditions cause food waste to release methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a environmental warming potential 21 times that of carbon dioxide.

"In the U.S., organic waste is the second-highest component of landfills and the largest source of methane emissions," Pate said. "The thought of fresh food just rotting in a landfill and just creating methane gas is so upsetting."

Globally, 1.3 billion tons of the food supply is wasted annually — more than one-third of the earth's food, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

That's despite the fact that many go without on a regular basis. Locally, an estimated 13,000 people a week seek food assistance in Western North Carolina, according to a 2014 MANNA FoodBank report.

In 2014, MANNA distributed 15 million pounds of food, enough to provide 34,000 meals every day of the year, all distributed through 248 partner agencies through 16 WNC counties. But the nonprofit deals chiefly in prepackaged foods and produce, and doesn't have the equipment to receive leftover food from restaurants.

"We aren't set up for it," said Jen Waite, director of food sourcing for MANNA. "We don't have the capabilities to receive and distribute prepared food."

That's where Food Connection comes in. But the service could do even more if local restaurants knew they could also get on board.

Ultimately, Pate would love to have a center where food could be stored and distributed. "But my goal right now is to get surplus meals from restaurants and caterers to people in need," she said. "Letting people know that there is not liability involved if they've properly handled their food and want to donate it is key."

Eric B. Cox, director of food-service operations at ABCCM and a graduate of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College's culinary program, said he's not surprised that many chefs today don't know about Good Samaritan laws. Until recently, the 35-year food service veteran wasn't aware of the 20-year-old laws himself.

Through the ABCCM's Veterans' Restoration Quarters, Cox feeds 240 veteran clients. Ninety percent of the food the VRQ receives through Food Connections comes from UNCA's hot bar or the cold buffet line, the leftovers of which are subject to the whims of notoriously picky students.

"Especially with the college students, you never know which part of the line they're going to get into first," said Cox. "There could be some great looking chicken fajitas over there that don't get eaten because they're going for the pizza."

Using ServSafe standards, school chefs quickly cool down and label everything that's meant to go to Cox's clients. The food then is safely delivered to the ABCCM so quickly, it's never away from refrigeration for more than 30 minutes.

That safety is particularly important to Cox, who said many of his clients are immune-compromised. Further, the Food Connection product saves Cox from purchasing at least one meal service weekly, working out to a savings of about $450 a week.

That's more food saved from becoming landfill fodder and delivered to those who need it. "To me it's better that it's being served to our veterans here and, if it's too small an amount to service us, we can send it to any of our crisis ministries or Steadfast House, our women and children's shelter," Cox said. "It can be utilized in one way, shape or form inside of our ministry."

Cox said every bit of product he's received from Food Connection has been "wonderful," and his clients agree.

"It gives them something new, something different," he said. "With my limited budget, there's only so much we can do and we have to rely a lot, and I mean a lot, on our volunteers ... we would not be able to feed these men at the VRQ without the volunteers and the donations that we get."

What is the The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act ? It's a federal law that protects good faith food donors from civil and criminal liability, should the product later cause harm to its recipient. The law excepts gross negligence and/or intentional misconduct. 

Why is the Emerson Act important? Each year, 14 billion pounds of food are sent to landfills. Of the 430 billion pounds of available food supply at consumer levels, more than 31 percent went uneaten in 2010, an estimated retail value of $162 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.

Nationwide, full-service restaurants account for 20 percent of food waste, grocery stores account for 11 percent and quick-service restaurants add another 13 percent to the heap, according to a 2013 waste audit by the group Business for Social Responsibility for the Food Waste Alliance.

Meanwhile, nearly 30 million Americans, including 12 million children, are at risk of hunger. Potential donors most often cite fear of liability as the reason they refuse to donate to feeding programs. 

Who is protected? Food donors, including individuals, and nonprofit feeding programs who act in good faith. 

What sort of food is protected? All food and grocery products that meet all quality and labeling standards imposed by federal, state and local laws and regulations even though the food may not be "readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus or other conditions."

Learn more about Food Connection at www.foodconnection.co or www.facebook.com/Food-Connection-626477880813942/