Impact of PMA & Exhibitors donation is monumental - thank you!

From Rick Bella: More than 15,800 members embarked on the Produce Marketing Association’s annual Fresh Summit International Convention and Expo this year, held October 12-15 in Houston, Texas. It was the first time held in Houston and attendance exceeded PMA’s expectations. Even exhibitor participation was great with over 500 produce related companies showing their goods and another 150 or so industry support companies. Overall a great event again put on by Bryan Silbermann and his talented staff as well as board and committee members.

Each year now, for many years, exhibitors donate display produce to America’s Second Harvest-The Nation’s Food Bank Network http://www.secondharvest.org/ . This year, The Houston Food Bank http://www.houstonfoodbank.org/ collected the produce at the close of the show utilizing about 200 volunteers working in two different shifts. They collected row by row, and booth by booth over 311,000 pounds (yes, three hundred eleven thousand) of fresh produce donated by each exhibitor at the PMA. The fresh produce was then distributed to the food banks member agency network (400 hunger relief agencies in 18 southeast Texas counties) that collectively provided 38 million pounds of food last year to the cities hungry and nearby counties reaching 80,000 different people each week.

Most exhibitors might not think about the impact of their produce donation and that’s understandable as they are all very busy with the business at hand during a show of this magnitude, however a special thank you to all of those companies is in order as well as a thank you to PMA for recognizing the need and suggesting the donation process to each exhibitor and providing the means to allow companies to easily mark their produce for donation as well as providing much of the logistics’ to support such a huge donation.

It is important to note that fresh produce has been the #1 category of food that the network distributes through the national program and has been for the past three years. Last year, the network collectively distributed over 200 million pounds of fresh produce through 204 member food banks providing food to 50,000 different charity agencies. It’s great to know that they are right there aliening with the industry to increase the importance of eating fresh produce. In a way, you could say that they are actually increasing the industries customer base, since most folks needing food assistance are right back in the supermarkets after a few months as a consumer once they are back on their feet.

The variety and quality of the PMA organized donation certainly exposes many consumers to fresh produce experiences that they might not otherwise ever experience. Thank you to PMA and the wonderful exhibitors at the show who continue to support the efforts of hunger relief. It really falls right in line with the entire industries values; helping others is not new to this group, for sure! Donations are accepted every day... contact Rick Bella at America’s Second Harvest – 312-641-6507 or email rbella@secondharvest.org