Chick-fil-A worker dumping many nuggets in trash in video sparks donation debate
Chick-fil-A, one of the largest American fast food restaurant chains headquartered in College Park, Georgia, is not new to controversy. The brand has, for years, faced opposition from LGBTQIA+ groups for its long history of donating to charities with prominently anti-queer stances. Now, it has gotten the internet’s attention thanks to its employees making TikTok videos of what’s happening inside.
The Daily Dot reported that an alleged Chick-fil-A employee, dumping a full tray of chicken nuggets into the trash as ‘Humble’ by Kendrick Lamar played in the background, has gone viral, with more than 7 million views. TikTok user @jlucvss shared the video with the caption, “What they do every night with the chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-a #fyp,” to his audience’s apparent horror.
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“Nooooooooo, give them to me!!!!” one user reportedly commented. Others were appalled at the food waste. “The amount of food we throw away and the amount of starving people there are just doesn’t sit right with me,” one user reportedly commented. “It’s sad.”
Some people, however, argued that food chains did not often donate surplus food because it might have gone bad and would cause harm to those consuming it.
The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, created to encourage food donation to nonprofit organizations by minimizing liability, and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton on October 1, 1996, however, “establishes Federal protection from civil and criminal liability for persons involved in the donation and distribution of food and grocery products to needy individuals when certain criteria are met.” Basically, it protects organizations from civil and criminal liability should the product donated in good faith later cause harm to the recipient.
Either way, compared to the other massive news on Chick-fil-A in June, this viral sensation seems tame. It was reported on June 1 that the National Christian Charitable Foundation (NCF), the nation’s sixth-largest charity and one of the biggest bankrollers of organizations currently on the front lines in the fight against the Equality Act, had among its donors, Dan Cathy, the billionaire owner of Chick-fil-A. Other donors reportedly included Betsy DeVos’ family foundation, the private foundations of the Anschutz oil dynasty, the late Republican donor Foster Friess, and Hobby Lobby, an American retail company.
In November 2019, Chick-fil-A announced plans to stop donating to charities with anti-LGBTQIA+ views in 2020. “There’s no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are,” Chick-fil-A President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Tassopoulos said in an interview then. “There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message.”
However, Chick-fil-A never explicitly said it would permanently stop donating to anti-gay groups or organizations that discriminate against LGBTQIA+ folks. it just said it was changing its philanthropic giving model.
A Change.org petition to "Stop delivery sites from selling Chick-fil-A" citing its anti-queer stances has so far received 4,344 signatures at the time of reporting this. The petition was created last week in the aftermath of reports on NCF and Cathy.