Federal law that allows stores to donate returned nonperishable food

[KKB]

"the Bill Emerson Federal Good Samaritan Food Donation Act in 1996, designed to protect those establishments and individual donors from criminal and civil liability, should any recipients become ill from food donation. State laws have been in place long before that which protect donors and encourage donation. None of the laws have ever been challenged."

(this is in response to a complaint earlier about Sam's--and apparently many other stores--telling customers returned food must be destroyed)

I am a librarian, so research is my forte. It didn't take long, thank you Google (well, it too me a while to find time to do it!) I actually ended up at the EPA site on food recovery.

Apparently stores are more worried about bad press than donating food. Funny--I would think it it would be bad press to be found to be tossing perfectly good food. I think it would be GOOD PRESS to show you are doing the right thing...

Instead the cost & effort must go to the customer to do the right thing--we aren't worried about bad press.

SO this isn't law. WAIT --IT IS. Institutions and individuals can give & are protected by the law.

 

[Allison]

Wasn't the discussion about the food not going back on the shelves?

And why shouldn't it be on the customer who buys something they later don't want because they overbought or whatever to take the responsibility for donating and not make the store take the loss for something that won't go back on the shelf?

 

[kaytieeldr]

" "(3) EXCEPTION. -- Paragraphs (1) and (2) shall not apply to an injury to or death of an ultimate user or recipient of the food or grocery product that results from an act or omission of the person, gleaner or nonprofit organization, as applicable, constituting gross negligence or intentional misconduct."; and"

The supermarket or other store has no way of knowing whether a returned item has been tampered with to cause harm, and likely considers it difficult to prove such damage wasn't caused by someone associated with the establishment.

Most likely, retailers have no qualms about donating food that hasn't been purchased. I know most of the food in the supermarket on Guy's Grocery Games gets donated to, I think, No Child Hungry.

Agree with Allison. Not a thing in the world stopping the customer from donating excess purchases to a food pantry or similar.

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

I guess I'm odd, but it's never occurred to me to return "food", I dont think returning a food item should be allowed. If I don't want it I find someone that I think will use it or I feed it to one of my animals.

 

[nugov2]

That isn't talking about food that has been returned. Like a pp mentioned it is the fear the food has been tampered with. I'd imagine most grocery stores donate food close to expiring. I agree why are people who know this policy too cheap to just donate it themselves. They want to take money from the store for their mistake(not b/c it was bad), but then blame the store. I have donated plenty of items that where items I didn't want(always when I send my dh to the store). It is our mistake so I don't think the store should have to lose money, so I donate it. I believe that poster was complaining b/c they overbought for a party. I can't imagine what you bought for a party you'd return. An extra bag of cheetos, veggies, dip other chips or pop. I don't know again, why you wouldn't store it for later or just donate it. Seems odd, but too each their own if they want to return it. It is obviously within the company guidelines. I just think to complain about the store is silly.

 

[lauradis]

"the Bill Emerson Federal Good Samaritan Food Donation Act in 1996, designed to protect those establishments and individual donors from criminal and civil liability, should any recipients become ill from food donation. State laws have been in place long before that which protect donors and encourage donation. None of the laws have ever been challenged."

(this is in response to a complaint earlier about Sam's--and apparently many other stores--telling customers returned food must be destroyed)

I am a librarian, so research is my forte. It didn't take long, thank you Google (well, it too me a while to find time to do it!) I actually ended up at the EPA site on food recovery.

Apparently stores are more worried about bad press than donating food. Funny--I would think it it would be bad press to be found to be tossing perfectly good food. I think it would be GOOD PRESS to show you are doing the right thing...

Instead the cost & effort must go to the customer to do the right thing--we aren't worried about bad press.

SO this isn't law. WAIT --IT IS. Institutions and individuals can give & are protected by the law.

Your forgetting that while the store would possibly be protected by law. The bad press from possibly donating tampered with food would be worst.

 

[FFMatt12]

Former Target employee here (Target with grocery), if it was bar coded as food, it was labeled destroy as soon as it was scanned into the Returns register. No way around it.

 

[eliza61]

"
Apparently stores are more worried about bad press than donating food. Funny--I would think it it would be bad press to be found to be tossing perfectly good food. I think it would be GOOD PRESS to show you are doing the right thing...

Instead the cost & effort must go to the customer to do the right thing--we aren't worried about bad press.

SO this isn't law. WAIT --IT IS. Institutions and individuals can give & are protected by the law.

No stores are more worried about getting sued, in a country where if you look at some one the wrong way they sue you.

 

[powellrj]

No stores are more worried about getting sued, in a country where if you look at some one the wrong way they sue you.

I use to be a vendor and we had to destroy all of our "damage" which is what you call anything deemed unsalable because people were taking the items and selling them at flea markets instead of donating the items.

I was really surprised that people return food because they bought too much and didn't like it. I guess I spent too many years as a vendor and anything you didn't sell and had to damage out, you also had to take the hit on the sale and credit the store back which came off my end, not the stores.

 

[kellyg403]

I work for a grocery, and yes, we donate lots of food to the United Way authorized agencies in our area. A lot. But none of it has been purchased and returned by a customer. Formula is a good example of why. If someone were to tamper with something we would not want your child to be injured. Same holds true for everything else. The store reclaims it and tosses. We get a certain amount of credit like 25% from our warehouse for damages but the customer always receives 100% refund.

On a personal note, I would not think about returning to a store items I overbought, did not use etc. However, it is a common practice.

Kelly

 

[sheetz]

" "(3) EXCEPTION. -- Paragraphs (1) and (2) shall not apply to an injury to or death of an ultimate user or recipient of the food or grocery product that results from an act or omission of the person, gleaner or nonprofit organization, as applicable, constituting gross negligence or intentional misconduct."; and"

Thanks. It would have been nice had the OP copied the entire law rather than just a few lines.

Here's a link to the law in its entirety
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1791

The way it's worded it sounds like a supermarket could very well be sued for gross negligence for donating returned foods whose safety cannot be verified.

 

[Sagginit]

My mother works in homecare for the elderly. There are often times an aid is grocery shopping for a client. If the aid picks up the wrong thing the elderly person will have them return it, in some cases they can't afford to donate it.

What I think is strange is when people expect stores not to resell other returned items. Like people are shocked its legal to sell returned undergarments or swimwear. Lots of people buy things in the wrong size and return them new. If the stores had to take all this stuff back and damage it out they would go broke.

 

[here757]

oh boy.. anyone know if OP is still not shopping at Costco? lol

 

[HNoir]

As a service desk employee of Sam's club I'd like clarify.... Yes, all human consumables that are returned are destroyed. I've had many members irate that I'm printing claim tags for food, supliments or over the counter medication. But how would you feel purchasing food of of the shelf if you thought there was a possibility that food had been at someone elses house for x amount of time. We claim out food products because we can not garuntee that they have not been tampered with, held at proper temperatures or in the case of canned goods, damaged in any sort of way... I've had people over purchase for family gathering, return large cans of vegetables, beans and etc. Those cans could of sat in a sweltering hot car, accidently been dropped and compromised the seal. I've had tons of over bought produce returned, I can't guarantee someone with the flu didn't sneeze on them.. Etc etc etc... And to think the store/vendor or anyone but the consumer should eat the cost of it, well think about that when the price of bread, milk anything goes up... All of us consumers eat the loss by paying more for products... My fav incident is when I returned over $300 worth of canned pop, bottled pop, individual chips, snacks, mixed bags of candy from a girl scout leader.. Oh they over bought... Tell me how you can't use these items at your next whatever event... -_-
The service desk an store policies are not out to starve children and ruin your day, we are the first line in insuring that products that are returned are safe and still functional before they are put back on shelves or destroyed if not. The other day I had a woman return sealed bags of cups and plates, she told me they were perfect and never used or touched. If I hadn't looked closely at what almost appeared as perfects packages I wouldn't of noticed the tiny mouse chew holes on the bottoms, the mice poop or bugs that were dead in the packaging.
With all that said... Sam's does donate quite a bit of food.. Day old baked goods, canned food, food the store has canceled out and etc... Food that they know to the very absolute best of their knowledge is safe.