Minnesota Pork Board takes part in food shelf donation
Minnesota Farmers Helping Families, a coalition of state agricultural commodity groups, made a donation of more than $115,000 in pork and dairy products to a hunger relief organization that serves all Minnesota counties.
Hunger Solutions Minnesota (HSM) accepted the donation of 85,000 pounds of ground pork and 40,000 pounds of cheddar and American cheese from the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council (MSRPC), Minnesota Pork Board (MPB)and Minnesota Milk Producers Association (MPPA). When HSM received the pork and cheese in late October and earlier this month, they coordinated distribution to six Feeding America Food Banks (formerly Second Harvest), who then redistributed the product to food shelves in every Minnesota county.
“Product distribution will blanket the state,” said Colleen Moriarty, HSM executive director. “As Minnesota families increasingly struggle to make ends meet, programs such as this are vitally important.”
At an Oct. 30 news conference, hosted at the state capitol by Gov. Tim Pawlenty to announce the donation, representatives from the commodity groups stressed the importance of meeting growing demand at food shelves. Elbow Lake pork producer and MPB executive board member Jim Merritt spoke at the news conference, saying that while times are difficult for Minnesota pork and dairy farmers, the economic slowdown has also affected many others.
“There are far too many who are in need of basic necessities,” Merritt said. “We care about our communities and we want to help.”
Last year, there were 2 million visits and 47 million pounds of food distributed at Minnesota’s 300 food shelves. Since 2000, food shelf visits have nearly doubled.
Goodhue pork producer Brandon Schafer represented the MPPA at the event and met with food shelf director Christine Pulver following the news conference. At Keystone Community Services, a St. Paul food shelf serving the Rice Street area, Pulver said food demand has increased 50 percent this year and 2008 usage had set a record. Pulver also said that Keystone hasn’t had meat in its freezers for more than three weeks and they rarely receive donation s of sliced cheese.
Soybean growers at a MSRPC committee meeting first suggested the pork and cheese food shelf donation. They then backed up their idea with $100,000 to buy the product, earmarking $50,000 for ground pork. The MPB added $15,000 in pork purchasing power.
Although the food shelf donation makes only a small dent in the global marketplace, the soybean producers’ contribution is substantial and fills a sizable product vacuum at food shelves, Schafer believes that this MSRPC’s effort symbolically recognizes the economic struggle facing their largest buyers of soybeans – livestock producers.
“To me, this demonstrates their understanding of the dynamics between my need as a pork producer for high quality soybeans and soybean growers showing their appreciation for the market that livestock production creates,” Schafer said.
Each commodity group provided staffing to help create Minnesota Farmers Helping Families and to work on details and logistics. Jill Resler, MPB director of producer outreach, worked on the project and helped direct an additional $5,000 MPB investment towards creating the donation web site, www.MNfarmershelpingfamilies.com
“We are now challenging other Minnesotans to help those in need by donating even more pork and dairy products,” Resler said.
Resler says ground pork is an excellent product for food shelf distribution because it’s easy to substitute in any ground meat recipe, can be heated in a microwave, has high nutrient value in proportion to its calorie content and three-ounces of pork provides half the daily requirement for protein.
“Each one-pound package of ground pork has a label with two easy-to-make recipes using ingredients that are likely available at a food shelf,” she said.
As the economy picks up and people regain their financial footing, Merritt believes this outreach can create new pork consumers.
“The mom and dad who made their family a meal of ground pork will hopefully once again be employed,” he said. “They will remember that they enjoyed pork and will visit the grocery store meat case.”
