Lunch/Food

[Patty Hoag]

Situation from Anonymous Subscriber:

The lab has 2 surgeries in a day.  They need staff to be there for 7 hours over lunch hour at any given time. staff have all specific skills to perform on various stages of the surgery and collecting specimens for the rescue grant.  Because the staff can't leave for lunch, they started buying food for staff on these days.

Additional information:  Food, not in the original proposal.  Surgeries happening monthly (sometimes more/less frequently, but its has happened more than once)

How would other handle this situation?  Allow on Sponsored Project?  Allow on non-sponsored funding?  Or not allowed?

[Hlitawci Xiong]

If staff cannot leave for a normal meal, I think the situation would fall into the second bullet of the Food and Refreshment section of the UMN Business Policy highlighted below.

"employees may not leave for a normal meal due to the time constraints associated with the meeting or training session or"

I would assume it would be allowable on nonsponsored funds. For sponsored, it would depend on the sponsor's policy on food.