Company : Weis Markets
Program category : Food Insecurity

Origins:

Weis Markets, Inc. is a Mid-Atlantic food retailer operating 197 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware. As a locally focused, locally connected company, it is committed to giving back to its communities. Throughout the year, it runs monthly cause marketing donation programs which combine customer and company donations. These programs benefit veterans causes, food banks, pet shelters and pediatric health care programs. Weis Markets’ Fight Hunger program, which is now in its 16th year, is the largest. Initially, it was a one-month program encouraging customer donations which we complemented with a company donation. It has grown significantly since 2008. Today, we run it in March, June, September, and for three weeks in November. The Company continues to donate as well. In addition, its distribution center provides tons of reclaim products to nearby hunger organizations while its stores now supply frozen meat products to its regional food bank partners

Contribution:

Our Fight Hunger program has:
•Generated $7.9 million in donations to regional food banks and local pantry programs since 2008. This total includes $2.5 million in company donations.
•Resulted in the store level donation of 6,400 tons meat.
•Generated $4.4 million in reclaim food donations from our distribution center since 2020.

Objectives:

Objectives:
•Generate customer and company donations to regional food banks in our seven-state market area.
•Build awareness of food insecurity which ranges from 25 percent in Maryland to 12 percent in Pennsylvania where the company operates most of its stores. Children comprise nearly half of this total.
•Create awareness of this important issue within our organization. Many of our store managers have volunteered at food banks and participated in their hunger seminars.
•Increase our collabs with like-minded suppliers and vendors who have their own programs. In recent years, we’ve combined efforts with Kellogg’s, Smithfield, Hormel, Upfield US, Kraft Foods, Lactalis Heritage Dairy, Tropicana, Chobani and Dannon

Impact:

Since the start of our Fight Hunger program in 2008, we have worked to be of service to food banks and smaller hunger organizations in the communities we serve. We have steadily expanded our program in terms of the time and resources we devote to it, developing new and more efficient donation streams. During this time, we worked to create greater awareness of food insecurity within our organization and to create a culture where we donate products instead of discarding them. While it is difficult to measure the overall impact of our Fight Hunger program, it is important to note we have steadily stepped up our game over the past 16 years particularly during the harrowing years of the pandemic, when food bank demand soared to record levels.

Quote:

“Our Fight Hunger program has steadily grown and evolved over the years to help our food bank partners address food insecurity in the communities we serve, said Weis Markets Chairman and CEO Jonathan Weis. "We’re grateful to our customers who have donated generously to our program and note we have supplemented their generosity with our own donations. By working together, we continue to help regional food banks and their partners meet the needs of food insecure families.”

Support Statement:

Joe Arthur, CEO of Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, shared the following: “Weis Markets has been an extraordinary partner in our mission for over 30 years. Their annual Fight Hunger Campaign has provided over $3 million in support over this period to help us serve hundreds of thousands of Central Pennsylvanians in need each year. Weis Markets is also one of our top donors of nutritious food, having contributed cumulatively almost 18 million pounds of food valued at almost $42 million. In addition, Weis Markets also provides leadership-level gifts to support our Food Bank special giving campaigns like ExtraGive, Raise the Region, Fill A Glass With Hope, Feed A Local Family, and more. We are thankful for the steady and deep partnership we share with this generous grocer and their dedicated leadership and team; they truly uplift our communities and inspire us in our work.”