“Hormel Foods sought to create a product high in protein to help serve malnourished and poverty-stricken communities worldwide,” said Jeffrey M. Ettinger, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer at Hormel Foods. “Our company has years of experience in creating shelf-stable proteins, so we employed our expertise to create this new product.”
Spammy™ is a shelf-stable turkey spread that has been fortified with zinc, iron, B vitamins, and other essential vitamins and minerals.
Hormel Foods has made an initial three-year commitment to deliver 1 million cans of Spammy™ to in-need families in Guatemala through partners Food For The Poor and Caritas Arquidiocesana in 2011. Guatemala was selected because its poverty rate is more than 50 percent and the chronic malnutrition rate is the highest in the Western hemisphere.
Food For The Poor is a relief and development organization that raises funds and provides direct relief assistance to the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Caritas Arquidiocesana is a charity committed to combating poverty.
“Through our partnership with Hormel Foods, we are able to provide much-needed protein to the women and children of Guatemala, and we are already seeing progress,” said Robin Mahfood, president and chief executive officer for Food For The Poor. “The children who eat Spammy™ are more active, their grades are improving, and overall, they are happier and healthier.”
Hormel Foods has been distributing Spammy™ in Guatemala for about 18 months to family centers and orphanages. In addition, Hormel Foods worked with Food For The Poor and donated more than 100,000 cans of Spammy™ to Haiti after the earthquake in January 2010.
Hormel Foods and Food For The Poor created a website to allow individuals to contribute to the Spammy™ program. All donations through the website will go directly and fully to Food For The Poor to purchase Spammy™ fortified turkey spread at cost from Hormel Foods. The product then will be shipped by Food For The Poor to Guatemala and distributed at the orphanages, day care centers, nutritional centers and family centers within the Caritas Arquidiocesana network.
To make a donation or learn more about Spammy™ or Food For The Poor, please visit: https://www.hormelfoods.com/responsibility/hunger.
About Food For The Poor
Food For The Poor, the third-largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian agency provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor.
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