This is sad. I have a hard time believe that someone you really needs help getting food would sue Walmart. Has the world really turned into a place where everyone is just look for the chance to sue the person standing next to them? If any alien life ever lands on this planet I bet they would hear something like this....."Hello, welcome to earth. I am suing you for trespassing. See you in court." What a wonderful world we live in.
By Todd Milbourn -- Bee Staff WriterPublished 2:15 am PST Friday, January 6, 2006
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Beewww.sacbee.comWal-Mart Stores, Inc., the nation's largest food retailer, said Thursday it will no longer donate nearly-expired or expired food to local groups feeding the hungry.
Instead, that food will be thrown away, a move several Sacramento charities consider wasteful.
Olan James, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the policy, which applies to all 1,224 Wal-Marts, 1,929 Supercenters and 558 Sam's Clubs, is an attempt to protect the corporation from liability in case someone who eats the donated food gets sick.
"We can't guarantee the safety of the merchandise, and consumer safety is our top priority," said James in a telephone interview from Wal-Mart headquarters in Arkansas.
Most charities get their food from an array of sources, and they say the loss of Wal-Mart or Sam's Club donations won't make a huge dent in their stockpiles. But as increasingly efficient grocery stores have less to donate, charities worry the stream of food donations from grocers is diminishing.
"If they were giving it away somewhere else that wouldn't be so bad, but the fact is, it's going into the garbage," said Owen Foley of the St. Vincent de Paul Food Locker at Presentation Church in Sacramento. "I mean, there's a big need."
Foley said the breads, pies and cakes his group received from the Sam's Club on El Camino Avenue helped round out the meals served to more than 900 families last year.
Ernie Brown, a spokesman for Sacramento's Senior Gleaners, which received about 25,000 pounds of food in 2005 from Sam's Club on Greenback Lane in Citrus Heights, said most food is fine to eat for days after the "sell-by" date.
He said Wal-Mart's concerns about liability seem misplaced in light of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, a federal law passed in 1996 offering food donors wide-ranging protections from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution. The law states that donors can be held liable only in instances of "gross negligence."
"Lord, we get millions and millions of pounds from Raley's and Bel-Air and Albertson's, and they don't have a problem understanding the law," Brown said. "Why don't Wal-Mart and Sam's Club understand the law?"
James said he is not aware of anybody suing Wal-Mart after getting sick from donated food.
Jennifer Ortega, a spokeswoman for Raley's, said the grocery chain isn't concerned the food it donates might make someone sick - an inspector checks each item before giving it out. While the chain has to throw away some items, the vast majority is good enough to eat.
"That food might not meet our standards, but it is still consumable," Ortega said.
James said charities that used to receive food from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are encouraged to apply for grants from the Wal-Mart Foundation, although the foundation won't increase the amount of money it gives out. The foundation distributed $170 million in 2004.
It's difficult to discern how much food individual Wal-Mart stores have donated to charity; the corporation doesn't track those numbers.
Wal-Mart plans to continue donating food to the hungry in other ways.
The company donates "tens of thousands" of pounds of non-perishable items like soups and canned goods every year to America's Second Harvest, said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for the national food distributor. Wal-Mart also donated $3 million to help provide food for the victims of last fall's hurricanes.
"They've been very good to us on the national level," Fraser said. "And I think that will continue."
Wal-Mart's policy comes as supermarkets across the country have scaled back food donations. Food banks say grocers are giving less as their operations become more efficient and find new markets for their products, such as dollar stores.
"With better technology they're able to tell how many cans of peas they've sold, and so there are less mistakes, and now there's more opportunity to sell these goods than donate them," said Sharon Eghigian, executive director of the California Association of Food Banks. "It's been a challenge."
Neither throwing away food nor giving it to charity offers a financial benefit to grocery chains, said Steve Duben, a member of the California Association of Certified Public Accountants from Encino.
"What the retailer lost was his profit, and you can't get a tax advantage for something you never had," Duben said.
Jeannie Bastion of Sharing God's Bounty, which feeds the hungry at St. Philomene's Catholic Church in Sacramento, said having donors come and go is part of life in the nonprofit world. Her group received baked goods from the Citrus Heights Sam's Club for five years until they were cut off last month.
Bastion said Sam's Club pies and cakes weren't the most nutritious part of the meal but provided a nice dessert.
"We look at it as if they brought something in," she said. "And even if it's a small amount, it's more than we had when we started."
