Food scraps from restueraunts & health codes

[T Rice]

I've been getting food scraps from the cafateria in my office complex daily for over a year. Been working out great; they have a b'fast and lunch buffet and have been giving me grits, scrambled eggs and lots of veggie waste, lettuce cores, tomato ends etc. Probably 30 pounds a day of GREAT pig feed.

Well today out of the blue they told me that due to health codes thay can no longer give me the stuff and will be back to throwing it all in the dumpster!

This just burns me up! How is it more healthy for them to throw this in a dumpster and send it off to the landfill instead of me taking it home and turning it into meat?

I haven't talked to them in person yet, just got an e-mail, so I don't know any specifics.

It kills me that everyone is talking so much about sustainability and the environment and this kind of stuff is so sensless. I've run into the same thing trying to get stuff from grocery stores and they are so scared of getting sued or something that they would rather clutter our landfills with perfectly good feed instead of putting it to good use.

I've been wondering if there could be some kind of document that I (or more than likely a lawyer) could come up with that would release them from liability and get past all this crap.

OK rant over.

Anyone else have these issues and has found any way around them?

Tom

[FL.Boy]

One grocery store here does not give any of it away anymore. One you have to be a farm to get it and the other one is giving it away to a beef farmer. The last one i need to check again because the farmer was retiring soon.

[KIT.S]

We (3 families, actually) share the leftovers from a FoodShare distribution center that cleans out their perishable foods each weekend. We end up with enough to help support a whole herd of chickens, two pigs, several sheep and a couple horses. It's a terrible shame and a waste that these places don't have anyone to show them how to properly preserve the food they're given by local grocery stores, bakeries, farmers and private individuals (yeah, I know, I should go help, but I work full time and have the farm to take care of too). Anyway, check out the local smaller places. They won't have to pay to have their leftovers taken away, and you can use it as feed. We do have to have quite a large compost pile - as I said, they don't take good care of it....
Kit

[luvrulz]

Here in Ky, they have a state law that the stores have to throw it out. Seems the public would eat the store's trash..... Not fair but there's always someone that'll ruin it for the rest of us.

[agmantoo]

T Rice
Before creating a lot of awareness realize you have been violating the law as long as you have been feeding the cafeteria scraps as received. It is mandatory that all restaurant scraps be cooked again prior to feeding to hogs.

[T Rice]

Agmantoo-

I am aware of that regulation. The hogs I raise are strictly for my own consumption.

If I was raising meat for sale I would gladly comply with these regs and cook the stuff.

However; I guess it's a moot point if everyone is so afraid of litigation that they throw it all away.