Updating our August 21 item: The Health Department in Middletown, Connecticut issued a “citation against St. Vincent DePaul Place on Tuesday for accepting some donated food from unlicensed kitchens. 
The department has asked the nonprofit group, which runs a soup kitchen, to comply with the health code by accepting food that comes only from licensed kitchens.” [Middletown Eye] The state’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is asking the legislature to loosen rules for charitable kitchens. [Hartford Courant] We covered the Connecticut pie menace nearly ten years ago [Dec. 13, 1999] and have since noted legal crimps put on cookies for troops, church potlucks, and much more.
2 Comments
Come on, Walter! We have to stop watching all these peoople drop dead and getting ill from these rogue unlicensed kitchens, and do something about it!
You act like people get sick from licensed places, like Jack in the Box.
Oh, wait…
Even licensed kitchens are restricted in what they may donate.
Several years ago I was on the Board of the community action plan for greater Middletown (hmm did that make me a community activist?). Anyway, I also worked at Aetna at the time, in the Middletown office that employed around 3,500 workers.
I approached Aetna management about donating surplus food from our cafeteria, to St. Vincent DePaul. Aetna looked into it, and reported that Connecticut law wouldn’t permit it. If prepared food (hot meals, burgers, pasta, veggies, etc) was prepared but left unserved, by Connecticut law it had to be thrown out. Johnny Cash got it about right –
I bet there’s rich folks eatin’,
In a fancy dining car,
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee,
And smokin’ big cigars,
The Aetna folks were eatin’ in the fancy cafeteria, all right. Still are. (no cigars though) Aetna does contribute a fair amount of money to charities in Middletown thru its foundation. But cafeteria food is still being thrown away, every day. Something’s not right about that.