McCain Foods, a major producer and supplier of frozen potato and snack food products around the world, is donating the equivalent of 1.5 million meals to support Feeding America efforts in the United States.The hunger-relief organization serves 40 million people annually, including 12 million children and seven million senior citizens.
“This partnership will help us meet ambitious targets for North America around food donation, volunteering hours and community development projects,” said Kerry Hunnius, vice president of business transformation and sustainability for Oakbrook Terrance, Illinois-based McCain Foods North America. “We are committed to contributing to the competitiveness, resilience and long-term development of the rural communities where we operate, and Feeding America is the perfect organization to help us do that.”
This June 10 announcement comes as part of McCain’s first-ever Sustainability Week, a celebration of environmentally-friendly initiatives and progress across the business’s global operation. Earlier this week saw the release of McCain Foods 2020 Global Sustainability Report, which is built on four key pillars: Smart and Sustainable Farming, Resource-Efficient Operations, Good Food and Thriving Communities.
McCain Foods Thriving Community targets in North America include:
• Increase Food Donations to US $150,000, which is roughly equivalent to 1.5 million meals donated. In addition, McCain 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 achieving a zero waste to landfill objective, ensuring that both raw and finished product is consumed, and never thrown out.
• Volunteer Opportunities. A program called Chips In’ is being launchedd, which allows employees from offices and production plants to take a paid day off from work to volunteer and support the communities where McCain Foods operates. The company 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,” said 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 and member food banks are working hard to serve our neighbors in need of food,” said 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 the relief organization between August and December 2020 during the devastating coronavirus pandemic (SARS-CoV-2).
McCain Foods USA, headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, employs 4,000 people and operates production facilities in Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, Washington and Wisconsin. Globally, the McCain Foods workforce payroll exceeds 21,000 at 49 production site and offices on six continents.
