Today, McCain Foods USA, a leading supplier of frozen potato and snack food products across the country, announced the donation of of 1.5 million meals to Feeding America, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the United States.
The announcement is part of the company’s commitment to help build thriving communities where it operates—a key pillar of McCain Foods Global Sustainability Strategy. Building a partnership with Feeding America will help ensure that perishable food from McCain Foods feeds families, and not landfills.
“This partnership with Feeding America will help us meet ambitious targets for North America around food donation, volunteering hours and community development projects,” says Kerry Hunnius, Vice President Business Transformation & Sustainability for McCain Foods North America. “We are committed to contributing to the competitiveness, resilience and long-term development of the rural communities where McCain Foods operates, and Feeding America is the perfect organization to help us do that.”
This announcement comes as part of McCain Foods first-ever Sustainability Week, a celebration of planet-friendly initiatives and progress across the business’s global operation. Earlier this week, McCain Foods launched its 2020 Global Sustainability Report, built on four key pillars: Smart and Sustainable Farming, Resource-Efficient Operations, Good Food and Thriving Communities.
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McCain Foods Thriving Community targets in North America include:
- Increase Food Donations: As a Feeding America Supporting Partner, McCain Foods committed to a donation of $150,000—roughly equivalent to 1.5 million meals donated. In addition, McCain Foods will continue to donate finished products and raw food to achieve a North American target of 17 million meals donated in the 2022 fiscal year.
- Reduce Food Waste: Feeding America will support McCain Foods in achieving its zero waste to landfill objective, ensuring that both raw and finished product is enjoyed, and never thrown out.
- Volunteer Opportunities: McCain Foods is launching an exciting program called Chips In’ which allows employees from offices and plants to benefit from a paid day off to volunteer and support the communities where McCain Foods operates. McCain Foods is looking to achieve more than 4,000 hours of volunteering in fiscal 2022 in North America.
“Feeding America’s nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs helps serve every county in the country,” says Ms. Hunnius. “This will be great for employee morale. It has been a rough year, and everybody is looking to do something good and help out. We will have a direct positive impact in the communities where we live, work and play.”
Feeding America serves 40 million people annually, including 12 million children and seven million seniors.
“Feeding America and member food banks are working hard to serve our neighbors in need of food,” says Lauren Biedron, vice president of corporate partnerships at Feeding America. “We are grateful for partners like McCain Foods who step up to support our mission.”
McCain Foods and Feeding America already enjoy a relationship, with McCain donating more than 250,000 pounds of food to Feeding America between August and December 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Learn more about McCain Foods sustainability commitments as well as our journey towards regenerative agriculture in Together, Towards Planet-Friendly Food, 2020 Global Sustainability Report Summary at mccain.com/sustainability.
For more information, please visit mccain.ca. Follow McCain Foods on Twitter @mccainfoods and Instagram @mccaincanada and Like it on Facebook at /mccaincanada.