Poverty is a curse that shows itself in many aspects of people's lives. But the most galling and painful aspect of poverty is hunger — and millions of people around the world, especially children, suffer malnutrition through a simple lack of proper, nutritious food.
It's hard to believe, but this problem exists — of all places — in the United States of America too. While the problem of obesity has become prominent, malnutrition is also rearing its ugly head in American society, and it needs to be not just acknowledged but acted upon.
That is the context in which one of the country's largest companies decided to act. Smithfield Foods — a $15 billion global business and the world's largest producer of pork and hog — launched a program called Helping Hungry Homes, dedicated to providing food security across the nation in communities facing shortages for all kinds of reasons.
01The program and its success
In spite of being the richest nation in the world, with a high per-capita income, the United States has a substantial share of its population facing food insecurity. Millions of Americans struggle to put enough food on the table, and many households do not know where their next meal will come from.
It was facts like these that prompted Smithfield Foods to launch the program back in 2008. Now in its tenth year, it has been a considerable success. Tours are organised as part of the effort, with trucks travelling to different cities and parts of the country to donate food directly to food banks.
The headline number is remarkable: to date, 113,521,980 servings of protein have been donated by Smithfield as part of this program. In 2018 alone, at the time of writing, the amount of protein donated came to 16,990,028 servings. States and cities across the length and breadth of the country were visited by the company's trucks to make these donations.
02On the ground in 2018
Two stops on the 2018 tour show the scale of a single delivery.
- Seattle, Washington — September. More than 41,000 pounds of protein was donated to Food Lifeline through a joint effort with Quality Food Centers — equivalent to 167,000 servings. It would greatly aid efforts to curb food insecurity across the 17 counties of western Washington. This was the 44th such large-scale donation of the countrywide tour that year.
- Fargo, North Dakota — July. A similar though smaller donation of 34,000 pounds of protein — amounting to 136,000 servings — was made to an organisation called Great Plains Food Bank, with assistance from Hornbacher's. This was the 34th large-scale donation of the 2018 tour.
Food Lifeline — Seattle, Washington
Food Lifeline works to end hunger across Western Washington, distributing donated food to a network of food banks, shelters and meal programs throughout the region.
- Region served
- 17 counties of Western Washington
- Donation
- 41,000+ lb of protein · ~167,000 servings
- Partner
- Quality Food Centers (QFC)
This initiative, launched by a private enterprise, is heartening and a very welcome move. Hopefully, other organisations will take the lead from Smithfield and serve their communities in their own way.
