Partnering with food rescue and recovery organizations to deliver excess food from events helps feed some of the millions of people who face food insecurity in the U.S.
At ReFED’s annual Food Waste Summit, where participants deeply understand the issues and impact of food waste, “it’s okay for us to run out of food,” Jacquelyn Chi, ReFED’s director of community engagement, said on the Convene Podcast. “We hope, obviously, everybody is satiated, but if we run out of food, that’s actually really great for us. That means that we were right on top of our counts and we did some great planning and prediction of what was going to get consumed.”
That’s not likely to be the case for most events, where some amount of surplus food is inevitable. And that presents an opportunity, Chi said, for organizers to donate food to those who need it in local communities.
More than 47 million people in the U.S. currently face food insecurity — a number that is expected to increase because of major cuts in 2026 to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Yet ReFED estimates that only 12 percent of the 14.5 million tons of surplus food that could be donated every year actually gets donated, Chi said. Meanwhile, “all across the country, there are food rescue and recovery organizations that are doing daily pickups from food service establishments to connect edible surplus food with those experiencing hunger.”
One big reason food doesn’t get donated is that venues and event organizers are afraid they will be liable in case somebody gets sick from the food they donated, Chi said. That’s even though federal, and sometimes local, laws protect individuals and businesses who are donating food in good faith, she added.
The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which was passed in 1996, was expanded by the Food Donation Improvement Act (FDIA) in 2022, to encourage more food donations. The law provides federal civil and criminal liability protection against claims for food donors and the nonprofit organizations that receive and distribute food donations for those in need, as long as donors follow food safety laws.
“Every venue in the United States could have a food recovery partner and you could design events so that any leftover edible food could go to food recovery,” said Pete Pearson, from the World Wildlife Fund. “That is possible and it’s legal. I’m amazed … that myth is still out there — that we can’t donate food because it’s illegal.”
Just education alone around the ability to donate food could divert more than 1.3 million tons of additional safe surplus food to those in need, Chi said. Event planners, she suggested, should become knowledgeable about food donation so that they can talk with venues and F&B staff about partnering with food rescue organizations and how to do it in a safe and effective way. “A lot of food rescue organizations are very familiar with these laws and these restrictions. And they’ve got all the logistics set up to make sure that you are donating food in a safe way.”
Barbara Palmer is Convene’s deputy editor
Coming to the Table
This article and those listed below are part of Convene’s April 2026 issue cover and CMP Series story package.
Coming to the Table: How the Events Industry Is Tackling Food Waste
