During World Food Day on October 16, Unilever will donate one million school meals through the Unilever Foundation to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to help end child hunger by improving the availability and nutritional quality of school meals around the world.
On World Food Day, Unilever will run a social media campaign. For every “like” received on the new School Meal Facebook app—endorsed by Unilever´s food brand pages including Knorr, Hellmann’s, and Best Foods—the Unilever Foundation will donate one school meal to WFP.
Unilever Food Solutions will also run a “Buy a meal—we’ll donate a meal” campaign to encourage employees using all restaurants and canteens at Unilever offices and factories around the world to order a special World Food Day dish, inspired by international cuisine. For every purchase of this meal, Unilever Food Solutions will donate one meal to the World Food Programme. Where these canteens are run by Sodexo, Sodexo will also make a donation.
“At Unilever, we want to use the power of our brands to engage millions of consumers in the fight to end hunger,” says Antoine de Saint-Affrique, president of food at Unilever. “World Food Day is a great opportunity to continue to help raise awareness of the global hunger issue and engage consumers. We are proud of what we have already achieved in our partnership with the World Food Programme, providing more than €15 million worth of meals worldwide over the past five years, but with needs so great, we are determined to keep doing more.”
The Unilever Foundation’s commitment to help provide school meals through the World Food Programme contributes to its Sustainable Living Plan goal to improve the health and well-being of one billion people by 2020.
“At Unilever Food Solutions we are committed to making 200 million meals healthier, tastier and more enjoyable by 2020, as part and parcel of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan,” says Leo Oosterveer, CEO of Unilever Food Solutions. “This commitment is not only about ensuring people have access to delicious, nutritional meals when they eat out of home, but also about making these meals available to the people who could benefit most—like school children in developing countries. That’s why we are proud to be donating meals to the World Food Programme this World Food Day.”
As part of its 200 million meals ambition, Unilever Food Solutions works with school catering operators to deliver training and menu advice that helps them to provide healthy, cost-effective, and most importantly, appealing meals to pupils. Since 2008, Unilever Food Solutions runs school programs. Now in eight countries, they benefit three million children around the world.