Excess Catered Food in San Francisco? Donate it to FoodRunners | Hacker News Reader

Excess Catered Food in San Francisco? Donate it to FoodRunners

foodrunners.org

120 pointssbisker28 comments

We just started using this service at GoDaddy/Locu and had our first pickup today. It was painless, felt good, and made me want to make sure the rest of the local tech community knew about them.

What happens if someone gets really sick off our leftovers? A caterer of an old employer told me they didn't donate food to shelters because of the legal liability.

This page on their website answers that: http://www.foodrunners.org/donor-liability/

"Some food businesses hesitate to donate food out of fear that, should the recipient become ill from the food, the donor could be held responsible. In 1988, the California legislature passed the “Russell Bill” which releases the donor from liability."

Coooool... but there's still the moral question of "what happens when you donate food that makes someone sick?"

You stay in bed for a couple days and be happy to receive donated food?

Pretty sure the people who are receiving free/donated food aren't the sort of people who can afford "stay in bed" for a few days, if they have a bed.

Well what else should they do? Not eat?

The bigger and vastly more common moral question is: what happens when you throw food out instead of donating it and someone goes hungry?

I've had a student startup working doing this exact same thing for the past 2 years in the PHX area - they get this question all the time. Legally they're covered by good samaritan laws, but they do take several steps to ensure food safety (temp measurements and controls in the app, avoiding certain types of foods, etc...)

Are they still active? What's the startup's name?

Well that's good, the law is there, but ultimately you still don't want to make someone sick. ;)

What about the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1791

> "A person or gleaner shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability arising from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of apparently wholesome food or an apparently fit grocery product that the person or gleaner donates in good faith to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to needy individuals."

This was passed by Bill Clinton to encourage food donation by protecting people from liabilities short of gross negligence.

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Emerson_Good_Samaritan_Act...

Interesting! This doesn't seem to be common knowledge. I had a WA state legislator tell me back in 2005 that this was illegal when I tried to start something similar.

I used Food Runners for close to a year at my old company and was continually impressed with their service. Even when something went wrong, they were quick to correct and improve each week. They began small but are growing. It felt good to donate the food rather than compost it.

We started http://communityplates.org/ a few years ago to help with this issue. Our goal was to use volunteers + technology to help with the logistics for getting the excess food to the people that needed it. Proud to say we will rescue over 3M pounds of food this year from grocery stores, restaurants, farmers markets, etc.

We are in Fairfield County, CT, Albuquerque, NM and Columbus, OH, but looking to grow.

(By the way, if anyone is looking to donate some app development time to a good cause, we'll gladly take the help)

This is amazing! I used to actively participate in a group that made and delivered food to the homeless a long time ago (about 11 years ago) and that is something I miss doing. I think that organizations like this one, who are doing what they are doing for no other reason (religious, political, ideological or otherwise) than to help those who need help the most are very inspiring. I wish them all the best and hope that they eventually start expanding to other cities like Tampa and Orlando.

Wish this could be done in the UK -- was giving a talk at a conference over here; hanging around back stage at the end of the night, it was quite disheartening to see that all the food trays (one of which hadn't even been started) were shovelled into black bags; the caterers said they weren't allowed to give the food to charity :(

Maybe because they would need to pay VAT?

> the caterers said they weren't allowed to give the food to charity

Smells like BS to me. Just an excuse to not have to do the logistics.

I was just at a conference two weeks ago ... right at the Embarcadero. Looking at some street folks in the park. Wondering what happens to all that extra food, and whether I could sneak some out. Thanks for posting this.

Feeding the hungry without inquiring why they are hungry can enable self-destructive and anti-social behavior such as drug addiction. Do the food banks and homeless shelters in San Francisco help the homeless turn around their lives?

It's not just the homeless that are hungry. There are kids where the lunch they get in school is their primary source of food for the day. There are people working minimum wage jobs that have little money left over for food after they pay the rent, utilities, etc.

Isn't most catered food inedible by the time an event is over? If foot sit out for some number of hours (4?) then you have to trash it.

There are some safety issues around temperatures, but typically you can only save what hasn't been served yet and this food is usually in a warming tray in the kitchen.