In an effort to combat hunger during the holiday season, Smithfield Foods, through its Helping Hungry Homes hunger relief program, generously contributed 64,576 hams to food banks across six states. The company, recognizing the heightened struggles faced by millions of Americans, took action to bring nourishment and comfort to those in need.
Steve Evans, vice president of community development for Smithfield Foods, expressed the company’s commitment in a recent release, stating, “Millions of people in the U.S. don’t have enough food to eat, and this is especially tragic during the holiday season. We’re honored to be able share these hams with our neighbors in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin, where more than 13,000 of our employees live, work and raise their families.”
Between December 15 and 20, Smithfield delivered hams with a net weight exceeding 286,000 pounds to various food banks within the Feeding America network. The recipients of this donation included:
Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin – Milwaukee, WI: 8,760 hams (37,000 lbs.)
Feeding South Dakota – Sioux Falls, SD: 8,400 hams (35,000 lbs.)
Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri – Columbia, MO: 8,584 hams (37,700 lbs.)
Food Bank for the Heartland – Omaha, NE: 7,152 hams (30,700 lbs.)
Food Bank of Iowa – Des Moines, IA: 8,936 hams (38,000 lbs.)
Food Bank of Lincoln – Lincoln, NE: 5,396 hams (30,500 lbs.)
Second Harvest Community Food Bank – St. Joseph, MO: 9,744 hams (42,800 lbs.)
Utah Food Bank – Salt Lake City, UT: 7,604 hams (34,500 lbs.)
Smithfield’s commitment to alleviating hunger extends beyond this recent initiative. In December, the company distributed 7,300 free Smithfield Spiral Quarter Hams in St. Charles, Illinois, and donated over 32,000 pounds of protein to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. Additionally, Smithfield organized a “Hams for the Holidays” food distribution event in Smithfield, Virginia, where 1,000 free Smithfield Hickory Smoked Spiral Sliced Hams, along with holiday sides from Kroger, were distributed to local community members facing hunger.
This follows other significant donations made by Smithfield earlier in the year, including 65,000 pounds of protein to Feeding Southwest Virginia and the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank in November, as well as a 50,000-pound donation of ham, bacon, sausage, and other products during the Mayflower Marathon to benefit the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank and Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore.
Since 2008, Smithfield has been steadfast in its commitment to fighting hunger and food insecurity. The Helping Hungry Homes program has provided hundreds of millions of servings of protein across all 50 U.S. states, as well as in Poland, Romania and Mexico. In 2022 alone, Smithfield donated nearly 25 million servings of protein to food banks, disaster relief efforts and community outreach programs nationwide, with a pledge to donate 200 million servings of protein by 2025.
More information about Smithfield’s programs supporting local communities can be found here.
