The donation equals roughly 92,000 meals, including milk, bread, produce, cereal, luncheon meats, cheese and other items found in a typical supermarket to help feed area residents who are living on the brink of hunger, according to America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network.
The FMI Show — one of the largest food trade events in the world — was held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. More than two million pounds of food have been donated to food banks from this event since the partnership with America’s Second Harvest began in 1996.
“This is the by far the biggest single day donation this food bank will receive this year,” said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of America’s Second Harvest. “There was enormous effort involved in rescuing this food and getting it from the convention center to the food bank. We are extremely grateful to everyone who volunteered and made this happen.”
“FMI has a long standing commitment to helping feed the hungry in America,” said Tim Hammonds, president and CEO of FMI. “Our members and Show exhibitors have always been very generous in supporting food banks and we are proud to help coordinate this effort.”
“We feed more than 25 million Americans every year who live in food insecure households – who don’t always know where they will find their next meal. We simply could not do this without the very generous help of the food industry. They give us hundreds of millions of pounds of food every year. If they were not here to help us, we simply wouldn’t exist, and millions of Americans would go hungry,” said Vicki Escarra.
America's Second Harvest — The Nation's Food Bank Network is the largest charitable domestic hunger-relief organization in the United States. Through its network of more than 200 member food banks, America's Second Harvest annually provides assistance to more than 25 million people in need, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each year, America's Second Harvest secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of food and grocery products to support feeding programs at approximately 63,000 local charitable agencies, including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs, and Kids Cafes. To learn more, please visit www.secondharvest.org.
Food Marketing Institute (FMI) conducts programs in public affairs, food safety, research, education and industry relations on behalf of its 1,500 member companies — food retailers and wholesalers — in the United States and around the world. FMI’s U.S. members operate approximately 26,000 retail food stores, plus 14,000 pharmacies, with a combined annual sales volume of $680 billion — three-quarters of all retail food store sales in the United States. FMI’s retail membership is composed of large multi-store chains, regional firms and independent supermarkets. Its international membership includes 200 companies from more than 50 countries.
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