How the Food Donation Improvement Act Impacts Events, Hotels, and Venues

Tracy Stuckrath [00:00:06]:
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of eating at a meeting. I am Tracy Stuckraff, and we are here this week to talk about how the Food Donation Improvement Act impacts events, hotels, and venues. And I'm very, very excited to bring to you today Emily Broad Leeb, who is the clinical who is a clinical professor of law and the director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic. She's a leader in research and action regarding food law and policy and especially on the issue of food waste reduction. Hello, Emily.

Emily Broad Leib [00:00:44]:
Hello. Thank you. Sorry that the title is kind of a mouthful.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:00:48]:
No. That's okay. It sounds very, very, very active and professional. So, everybody, I have been trying to talk to to Emily since this law enacted, but I know there's been lots of things since it got enacted that have to go through. So I'm very I'm it's corporate policy month, and so I'm really excited to bring this conversation here at that. And it's also the week of the month of Thanksgiving. So really thinking about giving back and giving to our communities through the donation of excess food. So I'm really excited to talk to you, Emily.

Emily Broad Leib [00:01:18]:
So tell us, what does the food law and policy clinic do? K. So this always is like my little PSA for nonlawyers, which is so clinics in law school are basically like a learning program for law students where they get to do real work before they graduate. So before the 19 seventies, law students would go to law school. They would sit in the lecture hall with and be lectured at for 3 years, and then they were expected to be professionals. And clinics really started to get them doing real practice while they were here. So my focus is all on food, and the work that students get to do is really supporting we have clients. We have partners. We're constantly answering legal questions, explaining the law, trying to we're gonna do today.

Emily Broad Leib [00:02:03]:
It'll take a while and make it understandable to nonlawyers. And then in a lot of cases, working with our partners that are trying to change the law to figure out how they can do that. So I'm doing that every day, and then I have students that are getting to work on that and learn. And, hopefully, some of them have gone on to be leaders in this space, both like in government, in other universities, in nonprofits working on food issues.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:02:28]:
Well and you just before we got started, you said you started this program when you were a fellow. So tell us why you did that.

Emily Broad Leib [00:02:36]:
Great. I've I let me tell you, I will talk all day about it. So when I I went to law school here at Harvard, I left and spent 2 years actually doing work in rural Mississippi around supporting communities in in improving health and economic opportunity. And while I was there, I started getting really into food issues because the community I was working in was asking all these questions. They're like, we want healthier food. We want a lot of there were new farmers markets springing up, and they had all these questions about the laws around what are we allowed to grow? What are we allowed to sell? So I started doing all this work for them. I ended up coming back to Harvard as a fellow. And but I was like, food is so important.

Emily Broad Leib [00:03:16]:
We're not talking enough about this. There people aren't talking about how much the laws shape what's available, what the costs are, and, like, what's hard to get, what's easy to get. And so I put together a curriculum and started teaching a course as a fellow and then became a lecturer and then have been a faculty member here since 2015 and running what is the 1st food law clinic in the country.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:03:40]:
Wow. And there are a lot of food laws, and I was just updating my website, actually. My food the food laws I follow generally are around food allergies and Food Donation Improvement Act and and things like that, but there are so many other laws that go into it, which will be a completely different episode that we can talk about.

Emily Broad Leib [00:03:58]:
Yes. Yes. I know. There are and that actually was, like, a a point of education I really needed to do with with my colleagues on the faculty that kind of saw food law. They thought, oh, it must be so narrow, and it was really educating them. It's actually quite broad. Like, it's it's, like, safety. It's labeling.

Emily Broad Leib [00:04:15]:
It's the first amendment. It's environmental regulations and subsidies. There's, like, all these areas of law, so I never get blown. Well, that's good.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:04:24]:
Well and and the labeling laws are really in in the news lately as well. Mhmm. And, actually, it posted something somebody was joking that Costco failed to write that it that butter contained milk, and they had to call.

Emily Broad Leib [00:04:38]:
It's a labeling issue and a food waste issue. I'm not sure where all that butter went.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:04:43]:
That's very true. Yeah. Where did that butter go? Oh my gosh. I didn't even think about that.

Emily Broad Leib [00:04:47]:
I didn't read the story. I just heard from one of my students. They they failed to mention that there was dairy in the butter, and therefore, I had to recall, like, some alcohol amount. Pounds. Yeah.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:04:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. So where does that go?

Emily Broad Leib [00:05:00]:
Good question. I don't know. We should find out.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:05:03]:
Yeah. I'm gonna dig into that. And in so that's a whole another question. So today, I wanna talk about the Food Donation Improvement Act. And so we in my education, when I speak and I talk about this, before it was enacted, there was the good the good samaritan the George,

Emily Broad Leib [00:05:19]:
not just Bill Emerson.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:05:20]:
Bill Emerson. Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act. Thank you. That that had legal protections on donations. But this law really why didn't why did the Food Donation Improvement Act have to happen? Mhmm.

Emily Broad Leib [00:05:33]:
It's a great question. So there were, I think so the let me start by saying the Bill Emerson Act was and was extremely protective of both the businesses donating food and nonprofit, like food banks or food rescue organizations that would receive the donation and pass it along. But it was old. So it was from 1997, I mean. Oh, 97. Okay. 97. And it was it was really thinking about donation in a way that still exists.

Emily Broad Leib [00:06:04]:
Like, none that hasn't gone away, like the kind of traditional food banking model. But in the last 10, 15 years, there's been a lot more attention on food waste and on food recovery. And there was, I think, an observation that this was actually standing as a barrier to some of the innovation. So the the the act had 3 parts to it. 2 were included in the final in what was passed, and one piece was cut out.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:06:28]:
And so

Emily Broad Leib [00:06:29]:
the 2 things that were included in the final act, one was that it expanded the original protection to allow donation from an an from a business or another entity to a nonprofit that sells the food at a at a very low price. So before that, it was like the donor and the nonprofit were only protected if the food was given away for free. And I think what we've seen is that it's actually if we're trying to really scale up food donation, it is not free to even if the food is free, it's not free to collect it and transport it and have a staff that are Right. That are passing it along and storing it and everything. So that was one. And then the other thing that the Food Donation Improvement Act did is that it said, for food businesses that have food safety training expertise, previously, they would only be protected if they gave food to a nonprofit that then distribute it. This now protects those food businesses if they also give it away directly. And that isn't necessarily again, neither of these are it's it's allowing a lot more pathways.

Emily Broad Leib [00:07:29]:
It's just saying, let's not be so specific around what the donation needs to look like in order to receive this protection. Let's double down on, we want safe food to get to people and not be thrown away, and let's double down on, like, expanding those pathways.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:07:45]:
Can I ask what didn't get approved?

Emily Broad Leib [00:07:47]:
Didn't get yes. Which I think is actually really relevant to maybe to to this audience is there was a third part of the law that was gonna require the US Department of Agriculture to write regulations that really answered some of the lingering questions about the liability protection, and that got pulled out at the end and wasn't enacted. So I think, to me, one of the big things that we face a lot is I feel like we're constantly answering questions, even with the new law on the part of businesses saying, am I protected? Am I not protected? And which I think shows both that having the protection is really important and also that we need to maybe have a better solution on on making sure people get answers when they have questions.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:08:31]:
Well yeah. Because, I mean, meeting professionals, and and I've been and I'm gonna count myself in there, and I can tell you on at least a hand in the last 2 years, we can't do that because we're gonna get sued. And and I do know that cut part of it's that, but part of it's also the time and the time that it takes to do it. But then again, one meeting planner story that I saw is, like, a a venue I think it was a convention center said, hey. We can't do this because we're gonna get sued. Well, the meeting cleaner went out and found a nonprofit in their org in their town that they were meeting and introduced them to Columbus Water, and now they actually have a strong partnership.

Emily Broad Leib [00:09:12]:
It's great. I love that.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:09:14]:
So what are the barrier I mean, I'm what are the biggest barriers that you've seen, and and how has this helped? Yeah. Totally. And I think

Emily Broad Leib [00:09:25]:
I mean, I think it's it's right. Like, having this protection not having the protection is certainly a barrier, and and we see that because we see businesses saying our legal team wants to know for sure that this covers what we're doing. And and, again, even with this expansion and I should start by saying, this is incredibly protective. It basically like, on the whole, if you take the Food Donation Improvement Act and the Emerson Act together, what it says is businesses that donate food, nonprofits that help them facilitate that donation are protected from all civil and criminal liability in all states. It preempts any state giving less protection. So you're protected anywhere in the country, donating anywhere as long as the food follows the safety rules, is donated in good faith, which means that you can't be either intentionally donating food you know is unsafe or being grossly negligent. You're pretty sure it's unsafe and you're passing along, but but it's extremely, extremely protective. That said, there's, like, things that come up on the margins where people ask questions about it.

Emily Broad Leib [00:10:29]:
I think the the biggest I would say is a lack of awareness overall of this law, and I love that, like, partly why I'm here today. Like, the more we can tell people that this exists and that it's out there and that it is a real statement on the part of of congress saying, we want people to donate. We want food to get to people who need it. Outside of the liability protection, I think some of the other barriers really you kind of one, you mentioned, there's certainly there's cost involved with getting that food along. Allowing protection even if the food is is given away for a low cost can help with that in some models. But you if you think about what you need to do to donate food, you need to find a place to store it first. Like, you're let's say you're at a meeting or an event. There needs to be a place you're putting that surplus food.

Emily Broad Leib [00:11:14]:
There needs to be some people that are trained and ready to handle it, which might take some extra time. There's all those costs associated with it. And there are some tax incentives that exist, both at the federal level and then in some states that offset some of that, but the cost and I think, like, another big barrier is just that it doesn't cost that much to waste food. So it it makes it really easy. It makes it pretty easy to throw it away rather than make a different decision. And so I think I think it's very easy for for for businesses or event planners, etcetera, to say, it cost me very little to throw this away. It's not harming me to do it. And there even if there's, like, a small amount of risk or small amount of cost on the other side, they don't wanna they don't wanna take those steps.

Emily Broad Leib [00:12:00]:
So and I hope we're changing that culture.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:12:03]:
Well, I was just gonna say, can we change it so that it does cost to waste? Well, I

Emily Broad Leib [00:12:08]:
will say that actually has been one of the things we're seeing, and growing number of states are creating what we've now coined as, like, a category of policies called we're calling them food waste deterrents policies. So that includes, like, bans on sending over a certain amount of food to the landfill. Massachusetts is, like, an example of a state that does that. It can include states that are requiring donation of safe edible food. So California is doing this at scale. They're requiring numerous businesses, including arenas and big event venues to donate their surplus food. Wow. That so that we're we now have 11 states across the country have some version of this.

Emily Broad Leib [00:12:50]:
Some are like California, I would say, is at one end of, like Right. How specific it is around donation and and on really getting to enforcement at the local level. Some of them are less are less heavy handed, but I think we're going in that direction where it's gonna be costly and penalized to continue to waste food.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:13:11]:
Well and I just think, I mean, thinking event wise too is, like, we come in and we do an event, and this is not just food waste too, but we come in and do an event, and then we just leave it for that city and that convention center or that hotel to take care of. Right? There's not necessarily a charge to us as the meeting organizer to do that. That it doesn't get passed on, which I'm not asking hotels to do that now. Don't pass that on to us at this point, but but there should be maybe there is a penalty. Maybe it is. It make us all think differently about

Emily Broad Leib [00:13:42]:
how we do it. Yeah. And that's right. And I think, again, I mean, it I one of the cool things to see is that states and and some cities actually are doing these kinds of policies at the city level. They're all experimenting. They're trying to figure out how do we do this in a way that doesn't have unintended consequences, but that ultimately, day over day, week over week, year over year, we're moving in a direction where we're saying food doesn't belong in the landfill. And I think just to say on that, it's both it's both that there's so many people in need. I think you mentioned at the beginning, like, Thanksgiving is coming up.

Emily Broad Leib [00:14:14]:
We're all thinking about how grateful we are for what we have, but there's, at this moment, 13.5% of households as of the end as of last year were food insecure. We're seeing that number go up. So so there's lots of people who will be delighted to have, like, safe food that is that is accessible to them. But also when food goes to the landfill, it's a huge emitter of methane and and is really concerning from a climate perspective. So I think there's there's a role for everyone. I think, like, I agree with you. Don't put it necessarily on the meeting and event planners, especially because some are probably coming into a space that they don't know the local landscape, but you all can be educators of, you know, bringing those best practices place to place, almost like ambassadors of what can be done.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:15:03]:
Right. Exactly. And we need to be asking the questions upfront. I mean and so when food is donated, and you said earlier tax incentive, that's not necessarily gonna come to me as the meeting planner. That's gonna come to that property that I'm that I'm renting the space from and ordering the food from to get that tax incentive.

Emily Broad Leib [00:15:21]:
Is that correct? I think that's how it would work. I mean, it's a really good question. Maybe one I can, like, look at a little bit more, but the way it works is basically the I think it I assume the meeting planners are never, like, the owners of the food, so that's probably correct. But Right. At a hotel or any other business or entity that's donating food so from the federal government, they are able to receive a tax credit that covers it's a little bit complicated, but, like, the lesser of either the the the basis value of that, which would be the value that it caused them to acquire that food or the basis plus half the profit margin. Suffice it to say, it covers more than covers, like, a fairly high value of that of that food more than you would get if you donated other items. Like, people donate clothing or other in kind things. You can get a higher value for food than any of those other things.

Emily Broad Leib [00:16:16]:
And then businesses can claim up to 15% of their revenue in a tax deduction for food that's donated, which is also Oh. Yeah. It's pretty high. It's That is huge. You would and they can carry it forward for 5 years if they don't if they don't use it. And I think this is another one, like, not enough businesses know that this exists and are

Tracy Stuckrath [00:16:34]:
Right.

Emily Broad Leib [00:16:35]:
You know, not taking advantage of it.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:16:37]:
Right. Oh my gosh. That's that's a large amount of money

Emily Broad Leib [00:16:40]:
Yeah.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:16:41]:
To just be able for just helping feed your community.

Emily Broad Leib [00:16:45]:
Totally. Right. Like, you got Yeah. Money for doing something that feels so much better than Right. Seeing all that food get thrown out.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:16:53]:
Well and during COVID, I know that there was one story, and this was at the onset. Like, one event was doing their event, and they couldn't because of COVID. And and I think it was, like, within 10 days of the event. So they found an organization within the city Mhmm. And that they they paid their fee for the food or however much they did. I have to go find that story. And they ended up donating it instead of the hotel throwing it away. So it came a win win because we are all now without food or without jobs.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:17:23]:
Yeah. Right.

Emily Broad Leib [00:17:23]:
Right. Right. Totally. Like, actually, we did a big campaign at the beginning of COVID trying to get the word out to, like, universities, for example. Like, they had all this food ready. They're about to serve all these meals and all of a sudden, like, they shut down. And so I think I think I I mean, single handedly, we couldn't get to enough of them, but I think those examples of there's all these, like, unexpected things that happen. That's obviously an extreme version.

Emily Broad Leib [00:17:47]:
But, you know, unexpected things happen. You think you're having an event, you think you're gonna have a certain number of people, like, you end up with a lot more food than you than you need.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:17:56]:
Right. So how would you recommend in in putting you on the spot that a meeting planner, when they're going to a hotel or a convention center or cater, add this to their agreement with that with that business to make sure that it does get done?

Emily Broad Leib [00:18:12]:
I think that's a great great question. I think I mean, I would say a couple of things. One would be, like, for meeting planners, maybe just having some fact sheets on hand. So one that we have is we have a basically, a very short couple page fact sheet explaining the liability protection. Mhmm. We also have one about the tax benefits that is is a little more in-depth because it's more complicated, but I can share with you if you want the the tax on liability protection. I don't know if I actually pulled it up before this, so I can put it in the chat. And I don't understand who accesses the chat, but I'm gonna chat it to you.

Emily Broad Leib [00:18:46]:
If you put

Tracy Stuckrath [00:18:47]:
it in the other chat, I can add it to the comments.

Emily Broad Leib [00:18:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. Perfect, So

Tracy Stuckrath [00:18:53]:
k. Awesome.

Emily Broad Leib [00:18:54]:
That's one that we put out on the that kind of explains the Emerson Act now with the Food Donation Improvement Act. So it explains all of the what do you need to do? So there's I I kinda talked about a couple of it, but the food needs to be apparently safe or wholesome. I should say the protection applies not only to food, but to other grocery products, which is important. Okay. And and to I think, like, having something like that to be able to say, here's the production. I can share with you later the the fact sheet on tax benefits. But at the very the very least saying to venues, do you know about this? This is important. This is something that I value.

Emily Broad Leib [00:19:32]:
I think I mean, I know I don't know. I'm not an event planner. I'm I'm a very poor event planner, having not really done it at scale. But I do think the other thing that's often hardest is just sharing. Here are the local places where you can where you can make those make donations and helping make that connection, which I think you were telling me a story earlier about the the barrier just being, like, making the actual connection and finding the organization and then being able to be. And I think I know that's also a lot of work to scout out in a new city, but there are a couple resources on that. There is a a map that the environmental the US Environmental Protection Agency has that that's called, like, the excess food opportunities map, and it has layers. Like, it includes things like compost facilities as well, but it also includes food banks and food rescue organizations so that Uh-huh.

Emily Broad Leib [00:20:25]:
It should be easy to see on the map. I'm in the city. Here's what's nearby, and be able to make those.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:20:32]:
Like I just found that and posted Yeah. Yes.

Emily Broad Leib [00:20:35]:
So that's a good point. And say, you know, reaching out. We're gonna have this big event. It's on this date. Here's how much we're gonna have. And I think the the nice thing is even if you reach out to one organization, they can't handle it. A lot of them are very network, so they might be able to say, alright. That's the timing doesn't work for us, the quantity, the type of food, but here's the right person and here's how to to do that.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:20:56]:
Well, yeah. I mean, because that does come into play. Because if I mean, if you're thinking about an event, you've got premade salads, premade lasagna, or all these different things, and depending on the type of partner that you've community partner that you have, they might not be able to use that. And I know that MGM in Las Vegas is partnered with the the food bank there and is, like, flash freezing that food so they can serve it in meals.

Emily Broad Leib [00:21:24]:
Yes. That's great.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:21:24]:
But that takes Yeah. Some extra capital for an organization to be able to do that.

Emily Broad Leib [00:21:29]:
Which I think is part of this too is, ideally, we'd have these venues, have a good experience, and then and and recognize that a lot of it's building on that. If there's an event, they make those relationships and then are able to kind of communicate better in advance and make sure there's the infrastructure that that is needed to do that. And I think I mean, I guess one thing is could be interesting too is having, like, event planners that are traveling from place to place even I don't know if there's, like, a place where people share ideas or tips, but, you know, in this place, I partnered with this organization, like, almost maintaining a list of the local organizations that were good partners, especially when you're thinking about the it's both the scale, but, like, the type of food. Like, it's not as as you were sort of saying, it's not all gonna be easy for a food bank to take because it might be prepared foods that that need to be distributed much more quickly.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:22:24]:
Well, you just gave me an idea. So But I'll start that. Thank you. I thought

Emily Broad Leib [00:22:28]:
it could be Such a great way to share. Yeah.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:22:30]:
Yeah. And there's a cup there's quite a few Facebook groups that I can put that out into to to share that because it is a challenge, and that's where we hear a lot of the griping in on this topic, frustration and not being able to do that. So one of the things I chatted with a woman years ago from Goodr in Atlanta. I forgot her name. Yeah. But Yeah. Yeah. Forgot her name.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:22:55]:
But anyways, she she was asking me about allergen labeling, and I know that because she wanted to make sure because when you do that food, it's not labeled.

Emily Broad Leib [00:23:04]:
Right.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:23:04]:
Because right now and we can get into this whole topic of of labeling, but, you know, I think with the new food code, it recommends it, but doesn't require labeling on unpackaged food. Mhmm. So that's that's a challenge in and of itself. Right?

Emily Broad Leib [00:23:20]:
Mhmm. Yeah. I think that's a good question. I mean, I will say from my work doing this, the the organizations out there that are receiving the donated food and passing them along are extremely professional. There are certainly small at the margins, like, smaller organizations that maybe aren't quite as but but they're not likely if you're dealing with a big event that's not the kind you're you're you're gonna be working with organization. They do know what they're doing. I think that they're able to receive that information. Like, I I would think with with with labeling a food, it could even be, like, conveying here's generally what this is, and they're able to say, okay.

Emily Broad Leib [00:23:58]:
They're gonna need some sort of, like, name for the item. They may not need the whole list of ingredients. And and I think, again, they do a really good job. Like, they recognize they're working often with vulnerable individuals as well. So I think that they they know how to kind of keep that food separated and make sure it's not getting to people who if there may be an allergen in it that isn't disclosed. Yeah.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:24:18]:
Okay. Yeah. It I mean, it's it's a challenge in general. Right? So we we can talk about that whole conversation on another show. One of the questions that I asked you before we got on the show was a best practice that you've seen in in all of this in in making sure that food gets donated. And you did you did your own conference. Is that right?

Emily Broad Leib [00:24:40]:
Oh, yeah. I would love to talk about ours. Yeah. So we we hosted 2 pretty big food waste food recovery, like, conferences here at Harvard Law School, 1 in 2016 and 1 in 2018. Big for us, 350 people. I think that pretty big. Mhmm. Why not and at that time, I was having a hard time getting our institution to allow us to donate food.

Emily Broad Leib [00:25:05]:
Mhmm. They were like, we we we're not gonna let you donate after. So So what we decided to do for both of those conferences was that we, procured all surplus food to be prepared into our meals. So this meant we worked with our dining hall here. We actually brought in a consultant to help source food. And what we did was we we, like, work with them. We let them know this was coming a couple months before. It was actually a little bit after commencement, so they they ended up freezing some of the food that they prepared for commencement that didn't get served.

Emily Broad Leib [00:25:36]:
So they served some of that. They re prepared it in different ways. We, like, sourced some fruits and vegetables that, you know, from farms that had surplus, that kind of thing. And our food management company here at the time was able to turn all of that into meals. And we when we labeled everything, like, this is it's chicken. It came from commencement. We did it. And we actually read the chef come out for, I think, the second one of them.

Emily Broad Leib [00:26:03]:
And he said, basically, every single thing you're eating is covered except for a couple of the spices. And there was one other item that they needed to source a little bit to make up for a deficit of what they were able to get from recovery. It was amazing.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:26:19]:
Wow. Wow. And you how many meals? It was like one meal per

Emily Broad Leib [00:26:23]:
No. I think it was 5 meals over 2 days.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:26:26]:
Wow. And it was all from surplus food. Wow. It was just like over ordering or leftovers and things like that. Yep. Yeah. I remember at Slow Foods conference in Denver, Slow Food Denver, and Steven Satterfield was responsible from Atlanta, was responsible for doing that and using all the food leftover from the festival for our final deal for final dinner.

Emily Broad Leib [00:26:50]:
Yeah.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:26:51]:
And it was delicious.

Emily Broad Leib [00:26:53]:
Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Totally. Well, it's so funny. When I first started working in this space, like, the first thing that I got into working on was actually date labels, which we can also it's probably a lot. I know how much that plays in to more prepared food side, but also they're a big cause of food waste because people don't understand them.

Emily Broad Leib [00:27:11]:
Businesses don't know if they when or if they can donate after the date. Consumers broke it away, etcetera. So when I started working on that, I had a couple experiences where I went to someone's house for dinner. And at the end of the meal, they said, oh, I didn't wanna tell you at the beginning, but all the food that we ate was sourced from I retrieved from, like, trash cans and whatever. I felt like, alright. I'm in. I'm down. But it seems like something you might wanna tell from at the beginning of the meal, but, you know, I added a bunch of delicious meals.

Emily Broad Leib [00:27:38]:
So kind of I I think when you're when you see what's possible Mhmm. It requires some creativity, but but I think you can you can have a a delicious, wonderful meal. And I actually think part of what's really important is is, like, reducing the stigma of donated food too. We all should be eating from our leftovers and, like, saving things up. It should be for everyone, but especially doesn't make sense to throw it away when there are so many people that are in need.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:28:06]:
Well and the the way you said that, it reminded me of a con conversation I had at IMEX, which is our largest meetings industry conference last month and Mhmm. With Trevor Lou out of Toronto, and he said we need to stop telling we need we need to reframe what we're doing and calling it instead of we're donating the waste to people, we're giving. We're thinking about it as a giving opportunity from the beginning. Mhmm. Right? And because we don't wanna make people think they're other and, oh, here's our trash.

Emily Broad Leib [00:28:37]:
Right? Totally. Totally. I think that's right. I think it's I mean, there's actually been this debate in this space for a while about, like, calling it food waste, which is really hard because now we everyone finally understands what that is. It's hard to change it, but I think there is this really important piece where we're we're misnaming something. And I think there's some power to the fact that calling a bed is is making it sound like it's not good for people. And and I think so so I like the idea of giving. It's surplus.

Emily Broad Leib [00:29:07]:
It's excess. A lot of it isn't wasted. It's too much. It's mostly too much. There's lots of reasons to wait, but, like, a lot of it is just we're having an event. We're having a meeting. We we didn't know exactly how much we needed. It's awkward when you run out, so we have too much.

Emily Broad Leib [00:29:22]:
Right.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:29:23]:
Yeah. And so we're we're feeding the community with our surplus.

Emily Broad Leib [00:29:26]:
Yeah. I like that.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:29:27]:
Right. There's a comment that just came in here. Julie just said, that's a great point. It's extra. What are we doing with our extra or our leftovers? I mean, leftovers is so kind. Leftovers works in your kitchen refrigerator, but, I mean, not necessarily when we're doing it for donating to a community organization. Mhmm. Have you found have you seen a lot of good programs that have started because of this since the FDIA was enacted? It's a great question.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:29:54]:
So I know I

Emily Broad Leib [00:29:57]:
I haven't seen new things necessarily yet. Although I'm excited. And if anyone out there knows of new things, let me know. I can tell you a couple of things that this is allowing that were really hard to do before. So let me give you a couple examples. One is actually the first client that I ever worked for that got me into date labels and then all this food waste stuff was an organization here in Massachusetts, in Boston called Daily Table, which is what's called a social supermarket. They're common in other countries. They're not so common here, but they are taking a lot of donated or or in some cases, purchasing surplus and selling it in a nonprofit grocery store at extremely low prices.

Emily Broad Leib [00:30:39]:
And the issue that they were having, that entity or things like that was don't donors that gave food to them before under federal law couldn't claim protection because the food was being sold at a low price. But they're filling a really big hole. I think if you think about recipients of food from food banks, for example, there it's a lot of people don't wanna get food for free. They would rather pay a little bit of money. Even if they can, they can only go a certain amount of time. Like, they can't be there every day. Like, they're Right. You could pick up a certain amount of times a month.

Emily Broad Leib [00:31:10]:
So it was it was really filling a gap for people. And, again, on this point of of really seeing the individuals getting that food as customers rather than as beneficiaries. So you go in, your it's your choice what you wanna buy or don't buy anything. Anyway, so they were able to start that because Massachusetts had already protection for for donated food that was sold at a low price. But all these other states, people kept reaching out over the years saying, we wanna start something in our state, and they didn't have that same protection. So my hope is we'll start to see things like this, which now has been extremely successful here. They've expanded to multiple stores take off. And then the other example that we saw was in the space of, like, direct donation.

Emily Broad Leib [00:31:54]:
This comes up first of all, come up a lot with restaurants. Like, they'll say, the end of the night, we don't have that much food. It's not like an event. They're like, food banks don't want our small scale

Tracy Stuckrath [00:32:04]:
of food, and we're afraid to

Emily Broad Leib [00:32:06]:
to give it away directly. The the other example was was schools. So schools also, they have they have a lot of food. Previously, because of the way that Emerson Act was structured, if they wanted to have protection, they needed to give that food away to a nonprofit that then would distribute it to people in need. And what a lot of schools were realizing was it's our own students and their families that need this food. It doesn't make any sense to send it across town. It might go bad along the way. So a couple states had passed a state law saying that an individual within that school could be the stand in for a nonprofit.

Emily Broad Leib [00:32:47]:
And so you're basically giving it to a nonprofit in this person of one of your teachers who you announce as part of that nonprofit. It was a total workaround to give protection to schools so that they could give food away, and now that is is Part of what we'll cover. Kinda nationally. So I think I I know a lot of the examples of what people were trying to do and trying to expand, and Right. I'm hopeful that more of this is happening, and we'll continue to see innovation that this allows.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:33:13]:
Well, it it brings up 2 different stories that I have. 1 is so there's a a school nutritionist in Virginia, in Western Virginia, that I interviewed, and she actually started a school refrigerator program.

Emily Broad Leib [00:33:27]:
Mhmm.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:33:28]:
And it actually allowed the kids saying, hey, if I don't have or if I don't like milk or I can't have milk, they can go put it in the refrigerator themselves, and then another one of their classmates can take it out. So it's it reduces that carton of milk going into the trash can. And it Totally. Those kids Yeah. Get back to each other.

Emily Broad Leib [00:33:46]:
Right. And what this allows is so you now have these, like, a share table or a share fridge or whatever in schools. And then at the end of the day, if any of that's still left, schools can feel like we can give this to a lot of schools have started backpack programs or things where they realize some of the kids are so in need that over the weekend, they go home or over, like, spray a rake or something, and they don't have a resource for food in that time period. So I think it again, it doesn't require schools to do that, but Right. It allows them to use that food for those for those benefits. And and I think, again, we saw that lots of schools were trying to do this and we're just not really cautious about not wanting to do something that wasn't protected.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:34:28]:
Well, yeah. And then my the other one is is the community fridge programs in general. Those popped up during COVID, I think, really fluently of and not in and not everywhere, but my friend Sarah started one here in North Carolina, FeedWell Fridges, and so she gets donations from restaurants and grocery stores and things daily, and she's preparing all that food and putting it in refrigerators versus I know Yeah. Ones in other places, like, the restaurant can go put that excess food in that fridge directly.

Emily Broad Leib [00:35:00]:
Yeah. Which is great. And, actually, this liability production is helpful for that too. We actually in the middle of COVID, we we did a project where we were we interviewed a bunch of the kind of community fridge, like, mutual aid organizations or whoever was staffing them to ask, what are the legal questions that are coming up for you? And a big one that came up was, do we have protection? Do the people putting the food in the fridge have protection? Especially, let's say, is a restaurant or something like that. And what we found is that they they do. It's even clearer now with this protection for some of those direct donations. But even before, I mean, it's very clear that that that is protected. And the really interesting thing with Community Fridges, I'm a really big fan.

Emily Broad Leib [00:35:42]:
I recognize that there's things about them that are hard, especially to keep them up over the long term Mhmm. Just as you need the utility cleaned out from time to time and but So do corporate refrigerators. Corporate refrigerator. Exactly. But you need but I think in having that schedule of people who are responsible and are gonna come clean out and everything. But but I'd seen community fridges in other countries from some of my work. And and prior to COVID, I thought these will never happen in the US. We're too litigious.

Emily Broad Leib [00:36:11]:
We're like too it's not, we're not good at having things that have this sort of unclear, like, ownership structure. And it was very, very cool to see them pop up, and I think, again, like, some of them have been extremely successful.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:36:22]:
Yeah. I know there's, like, in Des Moines, there's 80 fridges across Des Moines, which my friend started that program too. A different friend started that program. So when the so we're we're protected, but when when a hotel or a convention center or a restaurant starts a relation with x y z nonprofit, do they need to have some kind of legal agreement in that they're doing this and and or what should they should they provide anything, talk to their lawyers about how they're doing this?

Emily Broad Leib [00:36:51]:
It's a great question. I mean, like, in order to receive the liability protection, there doesn't need to be any documentation or agreement. And and what's interesting is typically where I'm talking to businesses that are setting up, like, an ongoing relationship, which some of them might be, like, the venues themselves. Ideally, if this all goes well, like, they would set up an ongoing relationship with a food bank or a recovery organization. In those cases, I would say, it can't hurt to have an MOU that just lays out expectations, but as a legal matter that isn't needed to to receive the, protection. I think it it just helps everyone know who's doing what and, like, how often are the pickups gonna be or, like, what whatever those details are. Details are. And I think, again, if if event planners who are going from place to place are able to help break that down, I do think what we see is once organizations donate, they realize it was easier than they thought it would be.

Emily Broad Leib [00:37:50]:
They they have to do the work of understanding the liability protection or the tax in a way that, like, before they could just be like, it's hard. There's liability. Once they do it once, I think it really is like it's sort of like like riding a bike. They do it once. They realize, wow, this was great, and it had all these other benefits. And I think what we hear often is, like, employees that are helping with doing donations actually, like, really value it. It's very demoralizing to work with food and and be the one throwing it away all the time. So I think Yeah.

Emily Broad Leib [00:38:21]:
I think we we we generally hear that once businesses start doing this, they wanna continue.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:38:27]:
Well and I'm glad that you said that because there's you never know about the person you're you're working next to. Right? You don't know if they're going using WIC or when they're not with you. Right? They're getting their meals at work, but you don't know what's going on at home. And there was a video on that yesterday on LinkedIn, but not around food, but just other things that you just don't know what's going on in someone's life. And a woman from the Society of Incentive Travel Executives from Spain was telling me something similar years ago that she was at an event, and she found one of the front of the house staff throwing filet mignon in the trash after the event, and she was crying. And she's like, why are you crying? And she's like, because I can't afford to buy this on my own outside of work, and my boss is having me throw it in the trash.

Emily Broad Leib [00:39:13]:
Totally. Totally. It's demoralizing. Like, I think people are it it can contribute to a lot better, like, culture among staff knowing that they're doing the right thing.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:39:24]:
Right.

Emily Broad Leib [00:39:24]:
I totally agree. I totally totally agree. And I think I mean, I think a cool thing too to think about for event planners is maybe using this as an edge in I'm gonna lee I'm not only gonna plan your event. I'm gonna help make sure that the surplus food gets to a a good location that doesn't get wasted. I'm gonna leave you with some knowledge about how to make sure to do that in the future.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:39:45]:
Right. Exactly. And I think with all the ESGs and the SDGs, environmental, social, and governance regulations and sis social and the so UN sustainable development goals. I know. Pause off the tube. Exactly. But it shows it gives the meeting professionals another leg up in that seat in the table saying, hey. We're helping protect.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:40:09]:
We're helping to meet our company goals by doing this.

Emily Broad Leib [00:40:12]:
Yeah. I think that's right. And I do think we we also in addition to working a lot on food waste policies in the US, we've actually been doing a lot of global work through a project where we've compared policies across now 25 countries. We've documented, like, what are their laws on food waste and food donation, who is the best ones, and how can countries change their policies. Like, for example, passing a liability protection law or creating tax incentives that don't exist. And what we're seeing is actually a lot of movement in in places where companies are doing reporting on, like, ESG or on scope 3 emissions. And so documenting how much food they waste and what they do with it is becoming more and more important. So I think, I mean, I think we're going in this direction.

Emily Broad Leib [00:40:58]:
I think it is a moment where there's probably an edge that event planners and venues can have in saying, here, we're doing the better thing. But I think it's gonna hopefully, we're moving in a direction where it's gonna be much more

Tracy Stuckrath [00:41:12]:
difficult and costly to just do business as usual, like, throwing food away and unlimited Right. Well, and I I from the planning perspective too, it's like really knowing your numbers. So to reducing your waste in the first place, I think that should be number one goal. But when you do have excess, how can we give it to those communities?

Emily Broad Leib [00:41:32]:
Yes. Definitely. I'm glad you mentioned that. And I think there's there's this sort of food recovery hierarchy. The US now calls it a wasted food scale, but at the top is always prevent. And that is really important too. Like, do the best you can to figure out exactly what you really need to order. And and and, like, over time, seeing the things that end up getting wasted.

Emily Broad Leib [00:41:51]:
Don't over order those things. But, yeah, the number one thing below that would be getting the food to people. There are lots of other things to do, getting food to animals. Again, there's lots of other things you can do with it before it goes into into a landfill. Or for that matter, into a garbage disposal, which I think I just learned actually is actually, from a methane perspective, worse for some reason. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah. Wow.

Emily Broad Leib [00:42:14]:
And, again, I think at this scale, we're probably not putting it in the garbage disposal from a giant event, but maybe I don't know if it's Right. It's not better.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:42:21]:
Well and I can't compost in my backyard because we have bears, and he told them

Emily Broad Leib [00:42:25]:
the bird feeder the other day. Yes. Yes.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:42:28]:
Yeah. So what is what do you wish I saw something that there too many laws cause too many problems, etcetera, but what do you wish people knew about what you do at the food I'm gonna get it right. The food law and policy clinic. Yeah.

Emily Broad Leib [00:42:46]:
I would say the number one thing is that everything we do is is responding to needs and questions that are coming from, like, businesses and nonprofits and governments. So we every general credit we have started from, like, someone coming to us with a question and us trying to help answer it. And that is, like, our number one goal is to take the the legal knowledge and then put it in the hands of people who have other expertise, like expertise in planning events or running a food business or whatever. And so I think that's first. And then and then over time, when we hear a lot of the same questions, we'll put out bigger, like, reports or tool kits or fact sheets because we realize lots of people are asking this, and a more efficient way to answer it is by doing that. But but I think it's very much, like, we have we have one tool in the tool kit. And I think in big societal problems like food waste, like, we're not gonna solve it alone. But hopefully, we can be part of sharing the knowledge and expertise we have with others to answer those questions and make it easier.

Emily Broad Leib [00:43:48]:
So I think that's the thing people I wish people all knew and and understood and could find ways to partner with us better.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:43:56]:
Yeah. Okay. So two more questions. Because what would be the what would be the first step for a meeting professional, whether it's a hotel or a planner, to take to make sure they're covered or not covered because they are covered, but to make sure that they can move forward in making donations?

Emily Broad Leib [00:44:15]:
I would say the first steps. 1, I think, would be we I sent I gave you the a fact sheet, like, educating themselves briefly. And, again, I understand, like, people hear, like, liability and they get really freaked out, but we tried to break it down really simply. And I think the biggest takeaway is almost anything you would be doing would be covered unless you're passing forward food that you know is unsafe, which Okay. Is high hard for me to imagine someone's doing. But having the basic facts so that you can communicate them to the venue you're working with. And then I would say, to the extent you're able to extent you're able to also bring to the table either volunteering that you will make the connection or you already know 1 or 2 of the organizations locally that are able to partner with you to recover that food. And again, that's sometimes the hardest part.

Emily Broad Leib [00:45:03]:
So I I I think, like, being able to do that, especially if you work a lot in one location Right. Have to know those 1 or 2 organizations. So you can say to the to the the the folks you're planning the event for, I know that we're covered. The tax piece is another added benefit and Right. And it can help make those connections for you.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:45:22]:
Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. My brain is already spinning on ways we can that I can help do this because it's it's it's such an important topic, and we need to be feeding the people. And especially, I think I saw a stat that the price of food went up double digit percentage,

Emily Broad Leib [00:45:37]:
the cost of food. Yeah. I know.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:45:39]:
And and it's gonna be harder for people to get food on the table.

Emily Broad Leib [00:45:43]:
Yep. Totally. I think that's right. I mean, one thing I'm actually doing, like, more on an academic side because it's less applicable in the US, but a growing number of countries that recognize the right to food are saying that, like, large amounts of food waste are violation of that right. So we saw a court case in Pakistan doing that. A new law in Mexico says food must be donated because throwing all this food away is violating the right to food. So I think, again, we don't

Tracy Stuckrath [00:46:10]:
Oh, I love that.

Emily Broad Leib [00:46:12]:
Given the right to food, but I think we can all relate to the concept and say, this is a violation of what we what we are supposed to be doing if we're just, like, throwing away thousands of pounds of food per year. 38% of food in the US gets wasted every year.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:46:28]:
Right. And I I direct that to there's a so I think it's $64,000,000,000 that and this is a 2016 number from the Events Industry Council, that US planners spend $64,000,000,000 a year on food and beverage. And if 38%, or I round it up to 40, that's $21,000,000,000. Yeah. And so if you just even if you had a $100,000 budget and 40 or hunt for food and beverage, that's $40,000 that it's going and throwing away.

Emily Broad Leib [00:46:55]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:46:56]:
What could you do with that $40,000? Totally. Totally.

Emily Broad Leib [00:47:00]:
And it's $40,000 is probably even the value is higher because if you're buying it at a large scale again, I think, yeah, I think it's a great time for people to be thinking about this. It's a season that we're thinking about what we're grateful for and and and hopefully thinking about how can we make sure that other people have those opportunities too.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:47:19]:
Exactly. Alright. My final question that I ask everybody is what does a safe, sustainable, and inclusive food and beverage experience look like from your perspective?

Emily Broad Leib [00:47:30]:
Well, the sustainable is easy. I think we talked about already, like, making sure I mean, thinking about the sourcing. We didn't really talk about the sourcing, but there are also things you can do on the sourcing side if you're really concerned about food waste. And some of that's things like there's a new upcycle food certification and, like, this idea of getting food that already you're buying things that would have been wasted or imperfect foods if you're preparing them. It doesn't matter if the apple's perfect, if it's gonna be chopped up and put into salads or whatever. So what are the things you can do? But, but it's really making sure that there's not a lot of waste at the end and making sure food that's safe can be donated. As far as, like, safe and inclusive, I think I think a lot of that is I I we talked about labeling. I know it's hard, but I think the transparency piece of it is is most important that people know what they're getting and that they you know, from the inclusive side, there's lots of people eating different types of diets and making sure people have the the the choice, but also the knowledge about what they're getting so that they're not getting something that's not for them.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:48:31]:
Right. Exactly. And I just posted the upcycled food, certification. I saw them at, oh, at Natural Products Expo, I guess.

Emily Broad Leib [00:48:42]:
Around Wow. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing I didn't share with you was our our our tax guidance. Do you want me to see if I can get that Yeah. With you really quick?

Tracy Stuckrath [00:48:51]:
That would be great. Yeah.

Emily Broad Leib [00:48:52]:
I'm grabbing you the link to our tax guidance. This one is not as simple as the this opened up really weirdly. I might need to share it with you afterwards. Okay. But, yeah, let me let's see if this works. Alrighty. So the tag guidance is a little more tricky, I would say, on that. Don't just alerting the venues other folks are working with to the about this, but but it's a really good.

Emily Broad Leib [00:49:18]:
And I should say, I mentioned we've been comparing laws around countries and the US has the strongest liability protection and the best tax incentives of any country we've looked at.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:49:29]:
Wow. That's huge. So why

Emily Broad Leib [00:49:32]:
wouldn't you be looking at it? Yeah. Totally. Totally. Yeah.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:49:37]:
Okay. I've posted it. I think

Emily Broad Leib [00:49:38]:
I would be here. You know what? Let me give one other tip. We last year, we launched a food waste policy coalition called the 0 Food Waste Coalition that we auction partnership with World Wildlife Fund Mhmm. Natural Resources Defense Council, and REFED. But we now have over 200 members, and we have members with with presence in all 50 states. And we're kinda working together on how do we continue to make these better, things like the Food Donation Improvement Act. Like, that wasn't that was a lot of people saying, we wanna see this change. And so I think there's also an opportunity to get involved if you see barriers.

Emily Broad Leib [00:50:17]:
Any barrier you're facing that that is solvable, get involved in in helping be part of those, like, systems level solutions. So I would welcome anyone who wants to talk about joining. It is memberships open to organizations, not individuals, but we share a whole lot of resources on the website that are open to anybody. So that would be another thing to do if you feel like you wanna do even more than what you're doing and help kind of make this part of the systems we see in the future.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:50:44]:
Okay. Cool. Awesome. And it's a Google form, so it's easy to complete that, to be part of it. Yeah. Very cool. This is so important, and I really appreciate your work. And I would love to have you on to talk about other policies that are coming around that were related to food, because this is all about food, the show.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:51:00]:
But Alright.

Emily Broad Leib [00:51:01]:
Sounds good.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:51:02]:
Next week, I actually have somebody on the show talking about the labeling on alcohol. That's the regulations that are coming around alcohol labeling. So allergens as well as just nutritional information. Yep. Yep.

Emily Broad Leib [00:51:17]:
Which is really interesting, like, for so long that we didn't have any of that.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:51:21]:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And and I met a woman this week who's got alpha gal syndrome, which is the man mammalian meat allergy or the mammalian allergy. And it's hard to find drinks and things that like, she was telling me what's Pepsi, she can't have, but she can have Coke. Wow. Because it's got some kind of mammalian product in it. Who knew? Yeah.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:51:45]:
Right? Scientists. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, Emily, thank you so much, for being here. And, oh, and if you everybody, you can reach Emily. She is on LinkedIn, but you can also reach her, the the do that and edit it, and I'll put the website there too. Save and show there's your website.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:52:05]:
So everybody can reach out to her there. But thank you so much for the work that you're doing, you and and all your students.

Emily Broad Leib [00:52:11]:
Thank you. I know. It's amazing. I mean, it's amazing what you can do with an army of energized, activated young people.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:52:18]:
Mhmm. Well and I think they're very activated to save the planet. So, yeah. Yeah. Alright, everybody. And, likewise, thank you so much. Everybody, until next week, stay safe and eat well, and make sure you're figuring out some way to make a donation, food donation from your events. And and actually chime in here and let me know what your Emily let Emily and I know what you are doing so that we can track it.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:52:42]:
So I thank you. Alright.

Emily Broad Leib [00:52:44]:
Have a good day.

Tracy Stuckrath [00:52:46]:
Thanks for listening to the Eating at a Meeting podcast where every meal matters. I'm Tracy Stuckart, your food and beverage inclusion expert. Call me and let's get started right now on creating safe and inclusive food and beverage experiences for your customers, your employees, and your communities. Share the podcast with your friends and colleagues at our eating at a meeting Facebook page and on all podcast platforms. To learn more about me and receive valuable information, go to tracystuckcraft.com. And if you'd like more information on how to feed engagement, nourish inclusion, and bolster your bottom line, then visit eating at a

Emily Broad Leib [00:53:36]:
meeting.com.