@patti, those pulled pork meals look stellar! You and your husband really showed off your teamwork in pulling that one off (pun intended 🙃)
I thought the discussion of food safety around community fridges was an interesting tangent for me and I hope it was perceived as another aspect of the situation, not any sort of intentional negativity.
9 hours ago, MetsFan5 said:I do know that in NJ, restaurants that donate left over food to food banks and other charities are protected by a law that doesn’t hold them liable for any food related illnesses, which encourages them to donate.
That’s actually a national law here in the US, the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996. It should apply to community fridges and donors like Patti, as long as they are acting in good faith. However, such liability protection does NOT mean the operations comply with local food safety ordinances. There are no federal guidelines for community fridges so they are subject to local rules.
Curiosity around that aspect got me looking around for best practices (like these) and there are definitely steps that can be taken to reduce risk, like requiring dating of all foods, the use of recording thermometers in the fridges with remote alarms to alert staff, regular cleaning and sanitizing logs, purging of outdated foods and educating donors. Local authorities may or may not be willing to accept anything except the regulations they already apply to restaurants, caterers, or food banks and that’s fair, though it unfortunately results in more people going without.
I certainly commend Patti and everyone who works so hard to help feed the hungry among us!
