Council committee defers leftover-food bill

Oahu restaurants and other food-related businesses won’t be required to donate leftover or surplus food to the needy — at least not for the time being.

Bill 9 — depending on which version of the bill — would either require or simply recommend that restaurants and others that serve food donate their leftovers. It was deferred by the City Council Public Works, Infrastructure and Sustainability Committee on June 28 after representatives from the business community strongly objected.

Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, who introduced Bill 9, remains undaunted and said she is looking for other ways to get more establishments to turn over food to organizations that serve the homeless or needy.

The intent of the bill is not to harm businesses, but to help those receiving the donations shift their limited finances toward housing or other necessities, Kobayashi said.

The nonprofit Aloha Harvest picks up both prepared and nonprepared rescued food and delivers it to social service agencies immediately, and likely would benefit the most from the bill’s passage. Currently, the organization works with about 6 percent of restaurants.

Kuulei Williams, the agency’s executive director, told committee members that Aloha Harvest picked up more than 2.2 million pounds of food from about 320 donors last year. The food was delivered to 172 nonprofits that served more than 52,000 people, she said.

But that’s “only a fraction of the leftover quality food from restaurants, hotels, caterers, wholesalers and grocery stores,” Williams said, estimating that more than 273,000 tons of quality food goes to either the city’s HPOWER waste-to-energy facility or the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill each year.

Several business leaders, both at the meeting and in interviews with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, voiced alarm at the idea of restaurants and other businesses being mandated to donate their leftovers.

Victor Lim, a McDonald’s franchise owner and a director for the Hawaii Restaurant Association, told the committee that many larger food servers already distribute leftovers to different charities because they take pride in their food and “we don’t want to see what we create go to waste,” adding, “We’re already doing this.”

Restaurant owners are willing to sit down with Council members to discuss other ways of encouraging businesses to donate more of their leftovers, Lim said.

Michael O’Keefe, city Refuse Division deputy chief, said the Caldwell administration supports a bill that “promotes feeding hungry people over the recycling of food waste.” Recycling could include feeding it to farm animals.

Distributing leftover food is also often cheaper than paying for it to be hauled for recycling or disposal, he said.

But Marc Alexander, the city’s Office of Housing executive director, said he would prefer restaurants and the public be educated on the types of donations that would be appropriate for distribution versus disposal.

“Because the restaurants are already doing a great job in this, I’m not sure another layer of administration and enforcement is necessary,” he said.

Some potential donors say they’re reluctant to hand over food for fear of making people ill. But Kayla Emineth, Aloha Harvest’s events and communications coordinator, said the organization’s drivers follow state Department of Health guidelines when handling and distributing food and that there have been no complaints of food-related illnesses.

What’s more, she said, the national Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996 protects those who donate in good faith to nonprofits for distribution to the needy from civil or criminal liability. A state law offers similar protections, she said.

Gerald Shintaku, chief executive officer for the Hawaii Foodbank, said he prefers the idea of a Council bill that encourages businesses to donate food and highlights the benefits of doing so, “not so much mandate it.”

The Hawaii Foodbank collects, warehouses and distributes quantities of perishable and nonperishable food to the tune of 1 million pounds a month. But unlike Aloha Harvest, it generally does not accept or distribute prepared foods.

Shintaku said he doesn’t know a retail supermarket chain or major food wholesaler doing business on Oahu that doesn’t work with organizations such as Hawaii Foodbank or Aloha Harvest. Restaurants are sometimes hesitant, despite the Good Samaritan Act. “They just have such high-quality standards,” he said.

Gregg Fraser, Hawaii Restaurant Association executive director, said his organization and its members work well with Aloha Harvest.

But requiring restaurateurs to donate leftover prepared food might be difficult logistically, even from the city’s end. “I think one of the biggest concerns is … if it was mandated, who is going to facilitate all 6,000 restaurants having to give you their leftovers?”

That would amount to 20 times what Aloha Harvest now takes in. Even if the larger Hawaii Foodbank were to accept more prepared foods, the nonprofits might not be able to move the increased volume, he argued. “I would bet they’re pretty taxed out with just maintaining what they’ve got,” Fraser said.

A number of restaurants can donate prepared food and have worked out their logistics for doing so, but others would have a difficult time packaging and making the outgoing food, and then finding available refrigeration space to hold it until it is ready to be picked up, he said.

“It’s not as easy as just handing the food off because you need to care for them in a certain way,” he said. “It’s not for everyone; therefore, a mandate or a law would be wrong.”

Kobayashi’s bill also would require the city Department of Environmental Services to administer and be responsible for the existing law, which requires larger restaurants and food sellers to separate and then process their food waste “at a recycling center designated by the (ENV) director.”

That proposal also raised objections.