The Food Retail Industry And Community Organizations Want More of What?

<p>By: Allison Febrey, Assistant, Health and Wellness/Food Safety, Food Marketing Institute<br /> <br /> <img src="https://www.fmi.org/images/default-source/blog-images/community-collaborators.tmb-large-350-.png?sfvrsn=883f456e_3" data-displaymode="Thumbnail" alt="Community Collaborators" title="Community Collaborators" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;" />Everyone may not agree on what to have for dinner, but we can all agree on one thing:&nbsp;family meals are important. Food retailers, food&nbsp;suppliers, and community organizations all support&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fmifamilymeals.com/" target="_blank">National Family Meals Month&trade;</a>&nbsp;(NFMM),&nbsp;encouraging consumers to share one more meal together at home each week. While the family meals movement started in the food retail industry, community groups have now taken up championing the family meals mitt. Over&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fmi.org/family-meals/Partners">75 community collaborators</a>&nbsp;support NFMM and more organizations join each day.&nbsp;</p> <h4><strong>Trusted Allies&nbsp;</strong></h4> <p>Many consumers see both their grocery store and their community organizations as allies in supporting their health and wellness&nbsp;(Trends 2017).&nbsp;&nbsp;With multiple trusted sources promoting family meals at home,&nbsp;the message of its benefits&nbsp;provides&nbsp;surround sound for consumers.&nbsp;In fact, some food retailers and community organizations partnered during NFMM to help families achieve more shared meals.&nbsp;</p> <h4><strong>A Partnership To Feed Families</strong></h4> <p>For the past two years,<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Hy-Vee, Inc. worked with Meals from the Heartland, an organization that packages meals for delivery to malnourished people in Iowa, across the United States and around the world. During September, Hy-Vee donated $1 to Meals from the Heartland for every social media post that included a selfie of a family sharing a dinner and the hashtag #hyveefamilymeals. Hy-Vee donated $100,000, providing meals to families and encouraging them to share one more meal together.&nbsp;</p> <h4><strong>Healthy for Good&nbsp;</strong></h4> <p>Another great example of Community Collaborator participation in NFMM is American Heart Association (AHA).&nbsp;This past year,&nbsp;AHA, through their&nbsp;<a href="https://healthyforgood.heart.org/">Healthy for Good program</a>,&nbsp;created a gold-plate winning campaign by retooling existing resources about family meals into one NFMM landing page.&nbsp;On&nbsp;this custom&nbsp;webpage, AHA integrated its already-made recipe box feature. This feature provided consumers an easy way to bookmark recipes to use for family meals.&nbsp;Their campaign also included e-newsletters featuring NFMM,&nbsp;reaching over 600,000&nbsp;consumers.&nbsp;</p> <p>In response to this surging participation, we&rsquo;ve&nbsp;created a toolkit for&nbsp;community collaborators.&nbsp;Here&rsquo;s a quick look at&nbsp;what&rsquo;s&nbsp;in the toolkit:</p> <ul> <li>Key messages for consumers and employees</li> <li>Supporting Research</li> <li>Activation ideas</li> <li>Graphics (including 5 infographics in both English and Spanish)</li> <li>Sample social media posts, press release, and more</li> </ul> <p>For more information, check out the toolkit&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fmi.org/family-meals/toolkits/community-collaborators-toolkit" target="_blank">here</a>. For even more&nbsp;National Family Meals Month&nbsp;resources, view our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fmi.org/family-meals/toolkits/retailer-toolkit" target="_blank">food retailer toolkit</a>, our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fmi.org/family-meals/toolkits/manufacturer-toolkit" target="_blank">food manufacturer toolkit</a>, and our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fmi.org/family-meals/toolkits/best-practice-guide" target="_blank">best practice guide</a>.</p>