With 1 in 7 people in Western Washington struggling with hunger, the faces of hunger look very much like the faces you walk by everyday on the street. At the end of the day our neighbors who struggle with hunger aren’t any different from anyone else, and like to eat the same types of foods that anyone else does.
The Food Procurement team at Food Lifeline works every day to source food donations from manufacturers and distribution centers throughout the region, striving to cultivate a wide variety of product. Sometimes these donations happen to be organic. According to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), total sales of organic food and non-food products increased almost 11% in 2015.
Food Lifeline is thankful to have strong partnerships with a wide range of companies who contribute to ending hunger in Western Washington, and enable Food Lifeline to offer a variety of food choices to our agency network. Some of these partners are:
- Nature’s Path
- Aurora Organic
- UNFI
- Pacific Foods
- Cascade Organic Flour
And they have two things in common: Their love of organic food and commitment to ending hunger.
Nature’s Path, based in British Columbia, has this to say about our partnership:
“Nature’s Path is a company that aims to do more than just sell breakfast foods. We aspire to advance the cause of people and planet – and we like to think we put our money where our mouth is. Or rather, where our heart is.
One of the ways we put compassion into action is by providing healthy, great-tasting organic foods to food banks in communities where our Nature’s Path team lives and works.
Nature’s Path is proud to partner with great organizations like Food Lifeline [in] Washington, which provides 91,000 meals a day to food assistance programs, to accomplish a shared goal of implementing creative and sustainable approaches to stopping hunger.”
The OTA also reports that dairy is the second largest organic food segment.
Aurora Organic Dairy is one such dairy company that also donates to Food Lifeline. Aurora Organic Dairy is committed to giving back to the community and “actively donate organic milk and butter to community organizations” (http://www.auroraorganic.com/community-involvement/).
UNFI, the nation’s largest distributor of natural foods, operates with service to the community as an integral company focus:
“The people who founded UNFI did so because everyone deserves access to healthy, sustainable food. We believe that companies should contribute positively. Be a good neighbor. We operate by those core values – seeing the big picture and doing what’s right” (https://www.unfi.com/why-unfi). In the last year alone UNFI has donated the equivalent of over 1.1 million meals!
Pacific Foods, based in Oregon, puts it this way at the top of their website: “If you can’t say it, don’t eat it”. An idea we may not all be able to achieve, but an idea to tuck in the back of our minds nonetheless. The company has been working to end hunger by providing nutritious food products to food banks and supporting after school meal programs for schools.
Cascade Organic Flour recently partnered with Flowers Foods to donate over 20,000 pounds of organic potatoes to Food Lifeline! Click here for the full story.
Every food donation to Food Lifeline is critical to help feed hungry people in Western Washington. The organic products donated to Food Lifeline help provide clients the same variety and choice as is provided to those who can afford to shop at grocery stores. Food Lifeline strives to provide a large variety of product and is appreciative of each and every food donation that comes through our doors, because we know it will go right back out to one of our hungry neighbors.
Rescue food. Feed hungry people. Repeat.
