PG Web Extra: Honoring Our Heroes

Many retailers have entered into their own partnerships with CPG companies to support active-duty military and veterans.

For example, last fall, Lisle, Ill.-based John Morrell Food Group’s Eckrich brand and platinum-selling country music star Randy Houser honored a military family with a night of surprises during Houser’s Nov. 22  tour stop at Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore.

The event began with Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher Solso and his wife, Clare, being escorted backstage for a surprise meeting with Houser, during which he and Giant Food presented the family with a year of free groceries and an all-expenses paid getaway to Tucson, Ariz.

“As a regional supermarket chain that operates in a market where many military bases are located, one of Giant’s core pillars of community outreach involves supporting our service members and their families,” says Jamie Miller, manager of public and community relations at Landover, Md.-based Giant Food, a division of Ahold USA.

This is Houser’s first year supporting Operation Homefront families and partnering with Morrell, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods Inc. Operation Homefront is a national nonprofit which provides emergency financial and other assistance to the families of service members and wounded warriors. Eckrich has provided more than $50,000 in free groceries to military families.

Homefront help

Meanwhile, West Des Moines, Iowa-based Hy-Vee Inc. administers Hy-Vee Homefront, an ongoing initiative to increase awareness of and support for organizations that serve the nation’s military members, veterans and their families. Plus, Hy-Vee has launched new efforts to recruit and hire military veterans.

Through Hy-Vee Homefront, the Midwestern regional supermarket chain is extending efforts to include more organizations, and invites customers, employees, suppliers and communities to join the campaign to step up efforts to meet veterans’ needs at home.

Further, Hy-Vee has supported Honor Flights for hundreds of veterans to visit the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. The grocer has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to help hundreds of members of the Greatest Generation from the company’s home state to receive free tours of war memorials in the nation’s capital.