About Meal Matchup

Meal Matchup is a reference site about surplus food donation and food waste reduction in the United States. It exists because the topic is scattered: the rules live in a federal statute, the logistics live inside food bank networks, and the practical how-to lives in the institutional knowledge of dining managers and volunteers. We try to put the essentials in one place, in plain language, with links to the primary sources — the EPA, the U.S. Code, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, Feeding America, ReFED, and the Food Recovery Network.

The site is written for three kinds of readers: people who run kitchens or dining operations and wonder whether donating surplus is feasible; students and volunteers involved in campus or community food recovery; and households that simply want to throw away less food.

An honest note about what this site is: the pages here are reviewed reference material — background, terminology, and pointers to authoritative sources. They are not legal, regulatory, or food-safety advice, and they are not a substitute for your local health department, your organization's counsel, or the food bank professionals who run donation programs every day. When a page touches a question with legal or safety weight, it says so and points you to the right people to ask.