Most restaurants would throw away leftover food rather than donate them under the assumption that prepared food cannot be donated to shelters and food banks. Little did they know that there's a bill that protects restaurant owners from any liability in donating food.

Many restaurant owners have this understanding that prepared food cannot be donated to shelters and food banks. However there's a law that protects restaurant owners from any liabilities when donating prepared food. 

The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act is a federal law that protects good faith food donors from civil and criminal liability should the product later cause harm to its recipients. The law exempts gross negligence and/or intentional misconduct.

USA Today reports that each year, about 14 billion pounds of food are sent to landfills. In 2010, about 430 billion pounds of food are available at a customer level and more than 31 percent goes uneaten.  That's an estimated retail value of $162 billion according to the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. 

Most of food waste comes from full-service restaurants which accounts 20 percent of food waste nationwide, 11 percent comes from grocery stores and quick-service restaurants adds 13 percent to that, according to a 2013 waste audit by Business for Social Responsibility for the Food Waste Alliance.

Sadly, around 30 million Americans which include 12 million children are suffering from hunger. Potential donors cite fear of liability as the main reason why they don't donate discarded food.

However there's a local service that works to deliver restaurant leftovers to shelters and soup kitchens. Food Connection works with several local restaurants which strictly follow proper ServSafe protocol to pack and label 18 proportions of leftover food.

Flori Pate, creator of Food Connections wanted to spread awareness about the Bill Emerson Act so more restaurant owners can join the program. 

"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."

Her non-profit has already donated more than 9,000 nutritious meals over the past year. 

"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.

Now that there's actually a law that protects potential food donors, we hope that many will take advantage of non-profit organizations like Food Connection to benefit less fortunate individuals with good food.

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