Most restaurants are not familiar with the protection Food Donation Act gives

There is a big chunk of food supply that ends up in landfills every year. Instead of donating to nonprofit organizations, a lot of restaurant owners give their leftovers to their staff or throw them away. They are under the wrong assumption that precooked food can't be donate for possible liabilities. Little do they know that there is an law called the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act that protects them when they donate food.

USA Today reported that owners of Asheville Pizza and Brewing Co. and the Nightbell and Curate are restaurant heads who are under the wrong assumption that precooked foods can't be donated. They are concerned that they might be held liable if the people they feed the food to might get sick.

GreenBiz wrote that in 1996, President Clinton signed the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act, which aims to increase food and grocery donations for non-profit organizations that will then be given to the individuals who truly need them. It protects businesses from liability when giving food donations to non-profit organizations. It will protect them from civil and criminal liabilities if the food causes harm to the recipient.

"I think there would be a lot of restaurants who would love to know about that," said Mike Rangel, owner of Asheville Pizza. "No one likes to waste food and, in Foodtopia, there should be no food waste when someone's hungry just three miles away."

According to Food World News, 14 million pounds of food end up in landfills every year. 430 billion pounds of food were available for customer in 2010, but 31 percent of that were left uneaten. That translates to $162 billion in retail value. Twenty percent of these wasted foods came from full-service restaurants. 11 percent were from grocery stores and fast food restaurants.

Ironically, 30 million Americans are suffering from hunger. 12 million of them are children. The possible liability hinders donors from giving their excess food. If they know about the Emerson Good Samaritan Act, perhaps the percentage of wasted food could be curbed.