United States Legal Liability Issues

Food Donation Connection (FDC) helps businesses donate wholesome surplus food to qualified nonprofit organizations. Since 1992, FDC has managed the details that make food donation programs work—including nonprofit coordination, pickup scheduling, food safety procedures, donation tracking, reporting, financial documentation, and ongoing support.

Many foods that can no longer be sold may still be perfectly suitable for donation. Depending on the operation, donations may include prepared foods, grab-and-go items, bakery products, produce, meat and seafood, dairy, frozen foods, packaged products, beverages, short-dated products, and excess inventory. FDC helps determine what can be safely donated from your operation.

Pickup schedules are designed around your operation. FDC considers donation volume, available storage, operating hours, food type, and nonprofit capabilities when establishing pickup schedules. For many high-volume locations, frequent or daily pickups can help minimize the amount of space needed to hold donations. Other locations may schedule collections once per week.

FDC connects donations with qualified nonprofit organizations serving people in the local community. We identify and vet recipient organizations based on factors including nonprofit status, food safety practices, reliability, transportation, storage capacity, and their ability to use the food being donated.

Yes. FDC provides centralized program management while coordinating nonprofit relationships at the local level. Whether your organization operates 10 locations or thousands, FDC can provide one program, consistent procedures, centralized reporting, and one point of contact across your organization.

FDC's live-answer Support Center provides donor locations and nonprofit partners with access to experienced FDC staff who can help resolve problems. The Support Center is available from 8am–5pm Eastern time, Monday through Friday, to address donor and charity questions and issues.

A food bank receives, stores, and distributes food to people and nonprofit organizations in its community. Food Donation Connection manages the connection between food businesses and nonprofit organizations. FDC does not operate warehouses or take possession of donated food. Instead, we help businesses build and manage their food donation programs by identifying and vetting local nonprofit partners, coordinating pickups, establishing food safety procedures, tracking donations, providing reporting and financial documentation, and resolving issues when they arise. Those nonprofit partners may include food banks, food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens, missions, and other hunger-relief organizations. For companies operating multiple locations, this means they don't have to find and manage separate nonprofit relationships in every community.

Yes. Prepared, refrigerated, frozen, and other perishable foods can often be donated when appropriate food safety procedures are followed. FDC helps establish clear procedures for handling, storing, labeling, tracking, and transferring donated food so food safety is built into the program.

Each year, 14 billion pounds of food are sent to landfills. Meanwhile, nearly 30 million Americans, including 12 million children, are at risk of hunger. Potential donors most often cite fear of liability as the reason they refuse to donate to feeding programs. Before passage of the national law, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted laws protecting donors. Yet, differences in language and applicability between states often discouraged national and regional companies from donating. With the national law in place, regional and national donors have the uniform language that protects them from civil and criminal liability.

The law protects good faith food donors from civil and criminal liability, should the product later cause harm to its recipient. The Emerson Act gives uniform federal protection to donors who may cross state lines.

The law protects food donors, including individuals, and nonprofit feeding programs who act in good faith. While exceptions are made for gross negligence, the law states that test groups will not be subject to civil or criminal liability. More specifically, the law protects individuals, corporations, partnerships, organizations, associations, governmental entities, wholesalers, retailers, restaurateurs, caterers, farmers, gleaners, nonprofit agencies, and more.

The Emerson Act provides protection for food and grocery products that meet all quality and labeling standards imposed by federal, state and local laws and regulations even though the food may not be “readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus or other conditions.”

The text of the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act can be viewed here.

Yes, qualifying food donations receive significant federal liability protection. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, as amended by the Food Donation Improvement Act, provides liability protections for qualifying businesses and nonprofit organizations that donate and distribute apparently wholesome food in good faith, provided applicable requirements are met.

Potentially—and they can be significant for eligible businesses. IRC Section 170(e)(3) provides an enhanced federal tax deduction for certain qualifying food donations. FDC captures donation data and provides valuation and documentation support to help eligible donor organizations and their tax professionals determine available benefits.