Each year, approximately 5 million prepared meals go uneaten, resulting in financial loss and negative environmental impacts as the food goes into landfills. At Share My Meals, we safely and sustainably recover surplus meals prepared by commercial food service providers and redistribute them to organizations supporting community members who are experiencing food insecurity. This connection within the food system provides benefits for everyone involved.
Yes! It is both legal and encouraged to donate surplus meals. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act provides legislation at the federal level for meal providers who donate surplus for charitable purposes. New Jersey provides additional protections to meal providers.
Share My Meals coordinates the pickup of all meals by either the recipient organization, a Share My Meals volunteer, a Share My Meals driver or a courier service (e.g. DoorDash, Uber).
Share My Meals delivers a set of our reusable containers to a food service partner prior to their first pickup. Food service partners are required to sanitize the containers prior to each plating. Containers are hot water and soap washed by recipients after use and are returned, clean, to the food service team during their next scheduled recovery.
At least three hours before a scheduled pickup, food service partners must complete our simple Meal Donation Form (see below). This form enables food service partners to indicate whether or not surplus meals will be available as scheduled and, if yes, the approximate amount of food being provided
Once you are a Share My Meals partner, you will work with a member of our operations team who will serve as your primary point of contact for any issues related to your recoveries.
We have two types of meal provider partners: weekly contributors and ad hoc contributors.
Meal provider partners can schedule up to three pickups per week.
Yes! Our food service partners work with our operations team to determine the ideal days and times of the week for pickup. Generally, we can set up a pickup for Monday through Friday, 9AM – 4PM.
Share My Meals has a set of criteria for our recipient organizations to ensure that they have the capacity to safely manage and redistribute meals. Once those criteria are met, our team works with yours to discuss any preferred recipients (e.g. an organization with which your team already partners). From there, we confirm that schedules align and formalize the match between meal provider and recipient organization.
Share My Meals partners with over 40 recipient organizations that support local community members in a variety of ways. Partners include community kitchens, (emergency and domestic violence) shelters, food banks, domestic violence shelters, youth services and community engagement organizations.
Timing: In order to ensure that our recipient partners have a reasonable amount of time in which to redistribute recovered meals, we accept surplus meals that were prepared within two days of being picked up. For example, if a chicken was roasted on Monday, the latest that we can accept surplus from that preparation is Wednesday. Our recipient organizations then have an additional two days (e.g. until Friday) to ensure that those meals are consumed or frozen.
Acceptable Contributions: As a general rule, if a food service provider knows that prepared food has been properly managed and is safe for delivery, Share My Meals will accept it. We do ask our food service partners to exercise professional discretion and refrain from donating food that, while safe and edible, has diminished quality (e.g. a wilted item, an item that will have significantly diminished quality after reheating).
For a full list of our accepted food items, please see below:
At present, trays do not need ingredient labels from food service teams. All of our containers have allergen warning stickers and our recipient partners assume responsibility for communicating to their guests that surplus meals should be assumed to contain an allergen and for providing an alternate option to those guests.
We offer half and full hotel pans.
No. Meal providers can use a single tray for as much prepared food as can comfortably fit into it and have a lid placed on top. Generally, providers will designate one tray per food item (e.g. a tray of rice and beans; a tray of short rib; a tray of roasted vegetables). However, if you find that you have small amounts of multiple items (e.g. ⅓ tray’s worth of pasta, ⅔ tray’s worth of vegetables), you are welcome to put them together in one tray.
Absolutely. We provide our donors with monthly impact dashboards as well as quarterly reports as requested.
It takes between 8-12 weeks for us to launch a meal recovery program depending on the concentration of partner organizations and meal transporters that we have in your area. We aim to move the process along as speedily as possible without compromising the steps necessary to ensure a smooth process once we begin.
Looking around the kitchen and seeing the smiles and positive energy coming from my staff just after a food…pick up says everything. They take a lot of pride and self-satisfaction knowing that they’re not only taking care of the community here…but [also] helping the community around us…Doing this on a weekly basis makes all of us feel we’re being responsible and respectful individuals in our community.”
Bessie Green has been busy and energized by our food rescue partnership with Share My Meals…[t]his initiative has provided our clients with a great introduction to healthier meals, helping us take meaningful steps toward better nutrition…[a] heartfelt thank you to the incredible team at Share My Meals for their ongoing support and dedication.”
At Peck, our students enjoy nutritionally balanced family-style meals. To help prevent food waste, we teach our students the importance of only taking what they need during each meal. The partnership with Share My Meals ensures that the small amount of unused food we have each week can be given to an organization within a community where we have Peck student representation. We are leading by example to create a more sustainable future that’s focused on helping others.”
Questions? Reach out to Meg Lembo, our Chief Operations Officer.
