Smithfield Foods, Shop 'n Save team for large county food bank donation

Meat processing company Smithfield Foods partnered with Shop ‘n Save to donate over 40,000 pounds of pork products to the Westmoreland County Food Bank.

The ham, bacon and meatballs donated equals some 160,000 servings of food, a spokesman for Smithfield said in a news release.

Jennifer Miller, the food bank's director of development, said the donated products will be distributed through local food pantries and could yield up to 33,000 meals. The organization serves more than 7,000 families each month and 30,000 Westmoreland County residents each year.

A donation of this scale is significant, Miller said, considering the difficulty food banks sometimes face when procuring protein products.

“Protein items are very expensive,” she said. “We only have a finite amount of resources that we're able to purchase food with, so a lot of times those higher-priced protein items go to the side.”

The food bank received a lot of chicken donations through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program this past year, Miller said, so the pork will be “a nice change for consumers.”

Representatives of both Smithfield and Shop ‘n Save brought the bacon home to the food bank at an event this week. It was the first time the food bank ever received a trailer-load of protein products at once, Miller said.

“We take for granted every day that we can go to the grocery store and pick up whatever we want,” she said. “To be able to provide a good protein source for families is just a dream come true for food banks.”

The donation was made as part of a Smithfield program that contributes to food banks across the country. Westmoreland's food bank is one of 50 that the company plans to donate to in its yearly “donation tour.”

Matthew Guerry is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-2122, mguerry@tribweb.com, or via Twitter at @MattGuerry.