| Course | MT313 Corporate Sustainability and Social Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 9 |
| Paper type | Food donation program proposal |
| Length | About 860 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT313 Unit 9
Donating What the Restaurants Throw Away: An MT313 Unit 9 Program Proposal Sized to What the Chain Would Approve
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT313: Corporate Sustainability and Social Responsibility
Unit 9 Program Proposal
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The chain, its waste figures and budget are composite; the laws, platform and sources cited are real.
Executive Summary
Problem. About 3.4 million pounds of edible food discarded a year at company-operated restaurants. Program. Donations of baked goods and sealed items to partner food banks, matched through Feeding America's MealConnect platform, three pickups a week, piloted at 20 restaurants before scale-up. Net cost. About $300,000 a year at full scale. Review. After a six-month pilot.
The Problem
During a two-week sample at 15 company-operated restaurants, managers weighed everything discarded and sorted it into edible and inedible. Edible waste averaged about 150 pounds per restaurant per week, most of it unsold biscuits, muffins and pastries, followed by sealed items such as yogurt cups and juice bottles nearing date. Scaled to 433 restaurants, that is about 3.4 million pounds a year. Federal analysis shows that food waste carries large environmental costs in water, energy and emissions across its life cycle, so food discarded at the restaurant wastes everything used to produce it (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2021).
Design
Partners. Feeding America's MealConnect platform matches food donors with nearby food banks and pantries that have capacity to collect. Each pilot restaurant is matched with one partner.
What is donated first. Baked goods and sealed items only. These need no temperature control and carry the lowest food safety risk.
What waits. Prepared hot food, such as eggs and potatoes, waits for a second phase, because it requires cold holding, temperature logs and faster pickup. A single food safety incident could end the program, so the first phase avoids that risk entirely.
Frequency. Three pickups a week, not daily, to fit partners' capacity and restaurant workflow.
Pilot. Twenty restaurants for six months, chosen for proximity to active partners, before any decision to scale.
The program starts small on purpose, because a donation program shut down after one incident feeds no one for long.
Legal Protections
Federal law shields a donor who gives food in good faith to a nonprofit from civil and criminal claims, unless the donor acted with gross negligence or intended harm (Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, 1996). A 2023 law extended those protections to food donated directly to individuals by qualified donors and to donations where the recipient pays a small fee to cover costs (Food Donation Improvement Act, 2023). Together, they remove the most common reason restaurant managers give for discarding food: fear of being sued.
Budget
Gross annual cost at full scale (433 restaurants):
Food safety training for managers and crew: $62,000
Labels, containers and storage racks: $118,000
Staff time to sort and package, about 20 minutes a day per restaurant: $244,000
Program coordinator, one position: $62,000
Gross total: $486,000.
Offsets:
Enhanced federal tax deduction for donated inventory: about $132,000
Avoided waste hauling, about 1,700 tons a year: about $54,000
Net cost: about $300,000 a year.
Pilot cost (20 restaurants, six months): about $14,000 net.
Measures
1. Pounds donated per restaurant per week, from partner receipts. Target: 100 pounds by month six.
2. Pickup reliability. Share of scheduled pickups completed. Target: 90 percent.
3. Food safety incidents. Target: zero.
4. Staff time. Minutes per day, sampled monthly. Target: 20 or fewer.
5. Waste hauling cost per restaurant. Target: 10 percent reduction.
Risks and Responses
Partners miss pickups. Food goes to waste anyway, and staff stop sorting. Response: a backup partner for each restaurant and a pickup log reviewed weekly.
Crew skip sorting during rush. Response: sorting happens after close, not during service.
Franchisees ask to join. Response: welcome after the pilot, using the same model; franchised restaurants would claim their own tax deductions.
Who Does What
Restaurant general manager. Assigns a closing crew member to sort and package donations, signs the pickup log and reports any problem to the coordinator. Program coordinator. Recruits and matches partners through MealConnect, trains managers, tracks measures and handles partner issues. Food safety team. Approves packaging and labeling, reviews any incident within one business day. Finance. Calculates the tax deduction from donation receipts each quarter.
What Partners Need
Before launch, the coordinator will visit each partner to confirm storage capacity and pickup times. Two partners in the sample area said they could accept baked goods three times a week but would need refrigerated trucks for prepared food, which confirms the decision to wait on the second phase. Partners also asked for consistent labeling with the date and contents, which the budget covers.
Why Not Start Bigger
The waste is large enough to justify daily pickups at every restaurant. But a proposal for $1.5 million a year, including prepared food and daily logistics, would likely be rejected, and a program that never starts donates nothing. A $14,000 pilot is easy to approve, and its results will make the case for scale-up.
Review Date
The pilot ends six months after launch, with a decision on scale-up at the following quarterly operations review.
References
Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, 42 U.S.C. ยง 1791 (1996).
Food Donation Improvement Act, Pub. L. No. 117-362, 136 Stat. 6281 (2023).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2021). From farm to kitchen: The environmental impacts of U.S. food waste (EPA 600-R21 171). https://www.epa.gov/land-research/farm-kitchen-environmental-impacts-us-food-waste
The Purdue Global MT313 Unit 9 instructions
In Unit 9 students design a responsibility program the company could realistically afford. A short summary up front should state the problem, the program and what it nets out to cost. The problem should be measured, ideally with the company's own data. Instructors expect the design to explain its scope and why it is narrower or broader than the problem. Legal and regulatory issues should be addressed where they affect participation. A budget table with gross cost, offsets and net cost is usually required. Roles, measures with targets, risks with responses and a review date should follow. A pilot before full rollout is often expected. The proposal should explain why a larger version was not proposed, so the reader sees the trade-off between ambition and approval.
Inside the MT313 Unit 9 example
The sample's summary gives the problem, program, net cost and review. The problem section explains the two-week weighing and the scaling to 3.4 million pounds, with the EPA on environmental cost. The design names partners, first-phase items, frequency and the pilot, under the highlighted line that a program shut down after one incident feeds no one for long. Legal protections are explained from the two federal laws. The budget lists four cost lines totaling $486,000 and two offsets. Sections cover roles and what partners need. Five measures with targets, three risks with responses and a section on why the program does not start bigger lead to a review date tied to an existing operations meeting.
MT313 Unit 9 rubric: what earns full points
Program proposals in this unit are commonly marked on feasibility, measurement of the problem, design logic, budget accuracy and evaluation. Graders reward proposals sized to what the company would approve. The problem should be measured with data. Scope decisions should be explained, especially what is left for later and why. Legal protections should be described accurately. Budgets should show gross cost, offsets and net cost. Measures should have targets, and risks should have responses. A pilot with a decision date shows judgment. Laws and research appear in APA 7. A proposal sized to the whole problem, with no thought for cost or risk, misses the unit's request for something fundable.
MT313 Unit 9 help from the desk
Program proposals often describe an ideal program that would address the whole problem and never ask whether the company would pay for it. Another common weakness is an unmeasured problem, stated only as "a lot of waste." Some proposals skip legal issues that make managers reluctant to participate. Budgets frequently omit offsets such as tax deductions or avoided costs. Before drafting, measure the problem at a few sites for a short period and estimate the smallest program that would still be worth reporting. Then design that program and its pilot first. A proposal that starts modestly, with a clear path to scale, is more likely to be approved.
Get an MT313 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Tell us the organization your Unit 9 prompt names, the problem it faces and any budget ceiling, and include the rubric. Within 24-48h the proposal arrives with a costed design, a pilot and decision rule, the relevant law summarized as coursework, and measures that count real change. The first custom sample carries no fee, and its design follows your instructions. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT313 Unit 9 questions, answered
How realistic does the budget need to be?
Realistic enough that someone who manages the company's costs would recognize the lines. The example draws on plausible wage rates, packing time and container prices, marked as composite. For a real company, the sample uses public wage data and published program costs where they exist, stating each assumption so your instructor can see where every figure came from.
Does the proposal need legal research?
Only as much as the program depends on. Food donation raises liability questions, so the example summarizes the two federal statutes and marks the summary as coursework for counsel to confirm. A program in another area might need privacy, labor or tax rules instead. The sample covers what your program actually touches, briefly and with sources.
Why start with a pilot instead of the whole company?
A pilot tests the assumptions the budget rests on, such as packing time and partner reliability, before the full cost is committed. Graders tend to reward proposals that expect to learn something. The example states in advance which pilot results would justify expansion, so the decision is never left to enthusiasm or to whoever championed the idea.
Where can I find a free MT313 Unit 9 sample paper?
The complete MT313 Unit 9 program proposal is on this page, designing a food donation program for a breakfast chain's company-operated restaurants.
Why does the MT313 Unit 9 sample leave out prepared food at first?
Prepared food needs cold holding and temperature logs, and a single food safety incident could end the program.