Restaurants Struggle in Fight Against Food Insecurity
Restaurant food rescue programs are something new to the Hudson Valley, and with their introduction has come several challenges.
There are many nonprofit organizations within Dutchess County that try to help the 26,130 individuals that suffer from food insecurity. But restaurants donating to organizations that help those in need are a more recent addition.
“Because food banks don’t accept prepared food, restaurants are new to donating,” said Carrie Jones Ross, Food Security Development Manager and Program Manager for FeedHV.
FeedHV is a regional food rescue and harvesting network that links donors of prepared but unserved food and fresh produce to nonprofit organizations that have food assistance programs. They receive donations from farms, restaurants, catering services, grocery stores, hospitals, and universities, among other institutions.
A 2018 report produced by Rethink Food Waste (ReFed) stated that the United States restaurant sector creates 11.4 million tons of food waste annually, costing the industry more than $25 billion.
Ross stated that restaurants in the Hudson Valley, however, do not have a huge food waste problem. She explained this is because employees eat the leftovers, or the food is repurposed back into the menus the following day.
Because there is little food waste, restaurants tend to not donate food regularly.
“I’m not saying that no restaurant in the Hudson Valley donates, it’s just not as common,” said Ross. “Some do already donate and have relationships with pantries or soup kitchens, but many do not.”
According to Ross, FeedHV mainly receives donations from restaurants when they are rotating shelf or cooler stock, when they close temporarily or permanently, or if there is a malfunction with a piece of equipment.
But there are exceptions to this. Recently FeedHV received a donation from a high-end restaurant in Dutchess County that had exponentially overproduced its turkey dinners for the upcoming holiday.
CHALLENGES WITH DONATING
One roadblock restaurant management can face when they attempt to donate their food stems from regulation.
“I hear so many restaurants telling me that the Board of Health will not let them donate,” said Ross. “That blows my mind, but I’ve heard it enough to tell me that is true.”
Ross explained that restaurants receive legal protection through state legislation as well as the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. This legislation protects a wide range of donors from criminal and civil liability and encourages them to give food that may not be “readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus or other conditions.”
Even with legal protections in place, though, a lack of legal awareness further discourages restaurants from donating their food to those in need.
“I’ve had chefs refuse to donate, even if the owner of a restaurant is on board, because they are afraid,” stated Ross. “This is the largest issue that we have, if they don’t trust that they can safely donate.”
Ross also explained that many restaurants lack training on how to properly set aside and prepare food for donation.
“Because it is so new, the restaurant’s workflow does not include functions on how to put together a donation and go through with it,” she said. “They don’t really institute it, and at the end of the night whoever is left just looks at it and throws it out.”
Ross works with restaurant owners so they can learn how to donate food properly. She teaches them how to set aside shelf space for the donations and how to label and wrap food.
Furthermore, when restaurants donate they usually do so with hotel pans, which are non-disposable and high in cost.
The cost of a hotel pan can range from $14 for a half-sized pan, to $100 for six full sized pans, as listed on Amazon.
Ross explained that soup kitchens, shelters, and homes with residency programs, who are able to receive prepared food, do not have the bandwidth to return hotel pans to restaurants with their small volunteer network.
HELP FROM TECHNOLOGY
While there are several limitations that are holding back restaurants from donating more regularly, recently adopted technology may help to fix this problem.
FeedHV utilizes ChowMatch, a software that connects agencies with surplus food donated by restaurants, grocery stores, caterers, and farms. According to the company website, ChowMatch is currently used in over 500 cities and towns in the United States to recover and deliver several tons of food daily.
FeedHV operates with ChowMatch in three counties in the Hudson Valley and is licensed in seven counties.
The donor initiates a contribution via the app and is matched to an agency that is in need of the specific category of food. An email blast will then go out to the agency’s volunteers to coordinate picking up the food, and the food run can be monitored with the use of the app.
Restaurants also can set certain features to use during food runs, such as measuring temperature readings while the food is in transit and receiving confirmations and the time the food had reached the agency upon its delivery.
Within the Hudson Valley, 32 restaurants are registered to use the software but according to Ross, there is very few that actually donate.
Ross explained that caterers, corporate dining halls, campus dining halls, cafés, and Starbucks donates more regularly.
Fifty-one percent of FeedHV’s total donations is recovered from locally sourced fresh produce, but the farmers are less inclined to cooperate with the app.
She said, “There’s way more to recover.”
