Colonel’s Cupboard food pantry discards unexpired food
By Jennifer K. Perkins
Colonel’s Cupboard discarded multiple trash cans worth of unexpired food behind Commonwealth Hall on Tuesday, Feb. 6.
The trash cans were filled with food items such as Ramen noodles, cereals, peanut butter, popcorn and other products. Items such as the popcorn did not expire until Jan. 13, 2019. Other items had expiration dates in March and November of this year.
Despite some items still being within date, Sarah Schultz, associate director of student engagement, said, “Anything in the trash would have absolutely been expired.”
Ninety-five percent of the food had been classified as discard items for more than a month, said Dylan Bogard, coordinator of Community Service Programs & Colonel’s Cupboard. The items were left over from the last food drive.
When presented with the expiration dates of some of the items found within the trash cans, Schultz and Bogard said that the food was sorted by volunteers.
Schultz said, “I think that goes back to our volunteer process. There is just the opportunity for error.”
The Cupboard has both weekly volunteers and large groups that come to volunteer on behalf of outside organizations. Bogard said the training process for the volunteers “depends on the group.” Bogard said an AmeriCorps worker trains the weekly volunteers, which typically consists of five to 10 students, on how to weigh the items and identify expiration dates.
“Just as someone might throw away a can that says December 2018 because they think it said 2017, we have students who might shelve something that says February 2016. Not that that has happened, but you know we get that occasionally,” Bogard said.
Bogard and Schultz said that items also could have been discarded because they were damaged.
Bogard said, “As far as food boxes, the boxed food depends on if the outer seal had been broken, like the package itself. (We are) just making sure we keep it to maybe grocery store standards.”
Schultz said that these standards come from national policies rather than university-implemented regulations.
In an attempt to obtain the national policies, the Colonel’s Cupboard was contacted directly.
Instead of a national policy, a university policy titled “The Colonel’s Cupboard Operations Manual” was made available on Tuesday, Feb. 6, but it did not contain specific guidelines for the disposal of items. The national policy cited by Schultz was never made available.
After receiving the operations manual, Kristi Middleton, chief external affairs officer at EKU, contacted Brent Parmer, executive director of Campus Life, on the Progress’ behalf, but he was not aware of a national policy. The Colonel’s Cupboard is an organization operating under student life.
In a continued attempt to obtain such policy, The Progress filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Wednesday, Feb. 7, asking for “all national and university documents and regulations relating to the handling, disposal and qualifications of damaged food from the Colonel’s Cupboard”.
Of the documents received from the FOIA, eight of the 10 documents were not specific to the Colonel’s Cupboard. The other two documents were a screenshot of an email reply to Schultz from the College and University Food Bank Alliance and a document titled “EKU Colonel’s Cupboard Donations.” This document appeared to be a copy of “The Colonel’s Cupboard Operations Manual” but contained expanded language and a new section concerning “Expired and Damaged Goods.”
The “EKU Colonel’s Cupboard Donations” document included a list of accepted food items that could be donated, where donations could be delivered and the guidelines for processing canned goods, boxed goods and expired and damaged goods.
The definition for damaged goods within the document is “Food that has damaged packaging, has potentially been exposed to damaging elements, and/or foods that have been contaminated must also be thrown away. Damaged goods are determined at the discretion of the Colonel’s Cupboard staff.”
The food discarded on Tuesday, Feb. 6, appeared to be in good condition. The boxes were not terribly dented and the inside content did not appear to be opened.
This document was shown to Woody Arvin, the Madison County Health Department environmentalist food
inspector, who stated that the policy looked standard.
However, he had no previous knowledge of the Cupboard’s existence on EKU’s campus. The Colonel’s Cupboard was founded in 2014.
As of the print time on Wednesday, Feb. 21, state officials and the Madison County Health Department were still trying to locate the organization that regulates and inspects the Cupboard.
Arvin said if you have canned green beans from 2015 as long as the can appears wholesome, not swollen, not rusted and not severely dented it can still be sold.
“There is no requirement for canned foods or any other foods as far as (expiration date) goes, unless it’s Grade A dairy products or baby formula to be dated.”
Arvin said that according to health department practices, the disposal process of food should include the packages of food being opened and the contents within should be thrown in the trash. The contents should then be “denatured” in some way. Denaturing can consist of pouring chlorine bleach on the contents, Arvin said.
The purpose is to make sure that no one can take the food out of the trash to eat, he said. Arvin said he is not aware of written guidelines for how a food pantry disposes of food.
The Colonel’s Cupboard is not regulated by the health department. The health department therefore cannot intervene in the Colonel’s Cupboard’s disposal of food.
At EKU, one in six students experience food insecurity during their first semester. Twenty-one percent of students might need food assistance as some point during their college experience. Ten percent of students could benefit from regular food pantry assistance, according to the Colonel’s Cupboard.
The Cupboard served 81 students by mid-January this year, according to a press release by the Colonel’s Cupboard on Thursday, Feb. 8.
The services that are provided extend beyond students on campus and into the community. Schultz and Bogard said surplus items are donated to local food pantries, such as God’s Outreach and Grace Now Food Pantry. Schultz defined surplus as “beyond enough supply for literally years.”
Grace Now Food Pantry verified that the last donation it received from the Colonel’s Cupboard was on Oct. 24, 2017, totaling 285 pounds. During the fall semester a total of 309 pounds of food was donated to Grace Now Food Pantry, according to a press release by the Colonel’s Cupboard on Wednesday, Feb. 7.
The Cupboard received nearly 6,000 pounds of food from donations and food drives last semester.
“Given the nature of our pantry and our pre-packaged food boxes, we often receive food that will not be used before the ‘best by’ date. This resulted in the community donations so that food would not go to waste. Students have never been turned away for a food box,” Bogard said.
The Eastern Progress will continue to report on this issue as new information becomes available.
