Walmart and Sams Club won't donate expired foods

Submitted by Patrick Grote on Sun, 11/26/2006 - 1:08pm.

Maybe you've noticed at Sams Club, but when rotissorie chickens are left at the end of the night they are thrown away. I noticed this in the past and so did Phyllis Cantor . She was so irritated by the fact that Sam's Club would throw away this great food, she worked hard to have Missouri pass a law concerning donations of food.

The problem most companies face when donating food is being liable for it. A federal law allows companies to donate food without liability, so the Missouri law was redundant, but it still went through.

At this point you would think at this point it's a no brainer for Sams Club to donate those chickens. Nada. They still won't give the good food to a local food pantry. Amazing.

Shannon Fredrick, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, says: "We felt it was better to give money to the food banks. It's just not our policy at this point."

Nice.

No reason given. You look at it and nothing is logical about it.

You might think this means the local food pantries are rolling in the cash, right? Wrong.

Sunny Schaefer, executive director of Operation Food Search , reports that donations are off 3.5 million dollars from last year.