Giant Food and Knorr Campaign Fights Food Insecurity in Washington, D.C.

Customer and company donations lift community efforts led by U.S. Dream Academy

7/6/2021

Giant Food and Knorr Campaign Fights Food Insecurity in Washington, D.C.

Giant Food, Unilever Knorr and the U.S. Dream Academy teamed up to help food-insecure consumers in a Washington, D.C. community.

Combating food insecurity is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood effort, and a recent campaign from Giant Food, Unilever Knorr and U.S. Dream Academy focused on one particular community in Washington, D.C.: the underserved Ward 8.

Launched in May, the program included customer donations of non-perishable food items collected at 164 Giant stores in the Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia and Delaware region. Shoppers who bought five participating Knorr Rice or Pasta Sides received two free cans of Giant private-label soups and were then given the option to donate any of the items to directly benefit U.S. Dream Academy Ward 8 families. Knorr’s parent company, Unilever, also announced a monetary donation of $25,000 to the U.S. Dream Academy’s efforts in Ward 8.

In addition, Giant’s nutritionists and Unilever's chefs and nutrition pros offered a virtual cooking class to provide community members with tips on cooking healthy meals. As part of the online event, Giant donated meal kits with recipe ingredients and Knorr recipe booklets, cutting boards, aprons and insulated tote bags to participating families.

C. Diane Wallace Booker, EVP and chief strategy officer at Silver Spring, Md.-based U.S. Dream Academy, noted that Ward 8 experienced an especially high rate of food insecurity during the pandemic. “We were pleased to collaborate to bring together fun, learning and awareness raising around healthy eating and the need for greater access to healthy, affordable food in Ward 8. We also engaged our young people to help us raise awareness — one of our DreamKids designed a food 'superhero' to promote the healthy food campaign in the Giant stores," she said.

Based in Landover, Md., Giant Food operates 164 supermarkets in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia, with approximately 20,000 associates. Parent company Ahold Delhaize USA is No. 10 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.