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Purchasing with a purpose

 

A new community partnership program will help consumers, food stores, and farmers provide eggs to the food insecure.  On Monday, Elanco, Kroger, and Rose Acre Farms announced the first HATCH pilot project.

Jeff Simmons, president of Elanco says the HATCH program allows consumers to purchase with a purpose.  “They can purchase with the hungry in mind,” he says.  “Buy a medium-size dozen eggs and for every dozen you buy – one egg, which is half the nutrients a child needs every day, is going to be distributed into the supply chain.”

Simmons tells Brownfield for each dozen Kroger-brand medium size eggs purchased an egg will be donated to central Indiana food banks, which play an integral role in getting the right food to the right people.  “Just a little over a year ago, I am sitting with a mother in eastern Indianapolis, four blocks from our headquarters at Eli Lily,” he says.  “And I asked her ‘What was her tough time that she struggles with in the day?’ And she said it was sending her child to school every morning.  She said she was skinny in the mind and overweight in the body.”

Jeff Simmons, Elanco

Cindy Hubert, president and CEO of Gleaners Food Bank says one in six Hoosiers and one in four children are food insecure and it is outrageous that people in the United States are hungry.  “The most important thing that recipients tell us that they want and need are protein, dairy, fresh fruits and vegetables,” she says. “They are the hardest things to come by and the most expensive to provide.  And yet protein is the most important part of any of our daily lives.  Food insecurity is not pretty, but it is very, very prevalent.”

Cindy Hubert, Gleaners Food Bank

To kick off the HATCH program, Elanco, Rose Acre Farms, and Kroger donated 34,560 eggs or 2,880 dozen to Gleaners Food Bank, Midwest Food Bank, and local food pantries serving central Indiana.

Amanda Jackson, Rose Acre Farms

The HATCH pilot program runs through June 20 at the 66 central-Indiana based Kroger stores.