July Corporate Partner of the Month: Kroger

July’s Corporate Partner of the Month is our friends from Kroger! We are so grateful for their long time partnership that results in millions of meals provided to Arkansans facing hunger. Each year, they provide financial support to grow the impact of our programmatic efforts, specifically our Veteran’s Feeding Initiative. In 2017, Kroger approached the Foodbank about wanting to provide an outlet for Veteran’s in need to have consistent access to food. As a result the Foodbank, in partnership with Kroger and the VA, created our Veterans Feeding Initiative. Now in it’s 7^th year, the program consists of mobile food distributions specifically targeting Veteran populations in different communities across our 33 county service area.

In addition to monetary support, Kroger also donates millions of pounds of food each year from their stores.

Just last month, a Kroger store in North Little Rock lost power due to a storm. Realizing that tens of thousands of pounds of perishable food items were going to spoil, the store manager called the Foodbank and asked if we could come recover the food. Over the next 24 hours, Foodbank staff collected over 76,000 pounds of perishable food items including fresh produce, dairy and frozen items. Two days later, this food was distributed to over 300 families in need. Examples like this are one of the many ways Kroger is committed to ending hunger in local communities.

This month also marks Kroger Delta Divisions 50^th anniversary. In 1973, Kroger stores covering parts of five states: Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky, officially became Kroger’s Delta Division.

Congratulations to our partner on this monumental milestone!