Give Surplus Food to Charities

Section 2: Adds a new Article 4-E to the Agriculture and Markets Act to establish the Surplus Food to Charitable Organizations Act.

- Creates a new Agriculture and Markets section 71-aa to define the terms "excess food", "qualifying charity" and "supermarket".

Under the provisions of this bill, the term "excess food" shall mean edible foods offered for sale by supermarkets which has become surplus and which such supermarket plans to throw out. Such foods shall not include fresh milk, meat, fish, or poultry, damaged food, or food subject to a governmental or producer recall.

"Qualifying Charity" shall mean a bona fide religious, charitable, or non-for-profit organization that provides food at no cost to the poor, needy, disadvantaged or at-risk persons. Such programs can include food pantries, food banks, soup kitchens, or community based programs that provide food to such persons.

"Supermarket" means a retail store that has more than 10,000 square feet of space at a given location devoted to the sale of foods, food stuffs, or groceries. Supermarkets shall not include cafeterias, bakeries, caterers, hospitals, group homes, drug stores, or food courts.

- Adds a new section 71-bb to add a Declaration of Policy section. To help address the large need to supply foods for the poor, needy, and disadvantaged, it is the stated policy of the State of New York to encourage, wherever possible, supermarkets to make available excess edible food to qualifying charitable organizations.

- Adds a new Section 71-cc to state that every supermarket, to the best of their ability, is to make a reasonable effort to make available on its premises its excess foods (before it is thrown out) to charitable organizations who have requested in writing to pick up excess food. The bill places no obligation on supermarkets to transport or distribute such excess foods. Supermarkets may impose restrictions to ensure pick-

up does not interfere with its business operations. Section 71-dd also states all public health laws and regulations remain in place.

Justification

In the United States, 60 to 100 million tons of edible food is thrown out each year. However, this food is critically needed as an estimated 50 Million of our residents, including 16 Million children do not have sufficient food to eat. This bill provides a mechanism in statute to clearly authorize and reduce any questions or concerns that supermarkets may have regarding a way to make available food to charitable organiza- tions that sponsor food pantries, food banks, soup kitchens or other community based programs that feed our poor and disadvantaged residents.

Additionally, this bill will help to reduce the amount of food stuffs that are transferred to our municipal solid waste facilities. It is very expensive to operate solid waste management facilities. This bill should help to reduce the volume of trash that is transported to and deposited in such solid waste management facilities. This will not only benefit the environment by reducing harmful emissions, but help to reduce munic- ipal costs in operating such facilities and the burden that this places on municipal taxpayers.

This bill will help the environment in other ways. The cultivation, harvesting, and transport of food, food stuffs, and groceries is a very energy and water intensive endeavor. Approximately 25% of water used in the United States goes to produce foods which end up in landfills. All food that is grown, harvested, and transported to market that is not consumed is not only food that is wasted in the nutrition that it could have provided to our disadvantaged, but it is energy and water wasted. By minimizing the amount of food that is throw away, that is a net savings in the amount of energy and water that is expended to produce such food.

This bill should have two direct effects on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from New York State. Firstly, the bill will reduce the amount of food waste that is being transported to sites that are part of the state's solid waste disposal system, governed by the Department of Environmental Conservation. These include the 174 permitted and 394 registered transfer stations throughout the state, and the 27 Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, located in DEC Regions 4-9. This transport is carried out by trucks, which emit greenhouse gases, in the form of large quantities of carbon dioxide, as well as smaller amounts of methane and nitrous oxide. Secondly, the bill will reduce the volume of organic waste in the disposal sites. As this waste decays, it releases roughly equal amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. The latter is particularly serious, since methane is over 25 times more detrimental than carbon dioxide.

Prior legislative history

New Bill

Fiscal implications

None

Effective date

This law shall take effect 180 days after it shall have become law.