Henny Penny employees package 34K meals for Foodbank

Employees at Henny Penny Corp. in Eaton packaged 34,000 meals on Friday for distribution by the Foodbank of Dayton.

During the “Meal Madness” event, 220 Henny Penny volunteers processed 5,500 pounds of bulk macaroni and cheese on 17 assembly lines to create the ,652 meal bags, each containing six pre-portioned servings. Each line produced around 2,000 meals, according to the company

Foodbank of Dayton will distribute the meals to food pantries throughout Miami Valley – Preble, Montgomery and Greene counties.

“Food is our business and our passion,” said Lester Wilder, customer quality analyst at Henny Penny, which designs and manufactures equipment for the foodservice industry, with household-name clients including Wendy’s and McDonald’s. “The Meal Madness event is one of the ways we support our neighbors and our community.”

Thecompany used the frenzied annual basketball tournament as a way to inject fun and timeliness into the serious business of feeding hungry families, said Wilder, who is leading the Meal Madness planning team for his Capstone class at Ohio University.

Henny Penny worked with The Outreach Program, which organizes food-packaging events, and followed the nonprofit’s exacting protocols to pull off the feat.

Foodbank of Dayton, which distributed more than 11 million pounds of food in 2017, says approximately 124,000 people in Preble, Montgomery and Greene counties report food insecurity. The premade, easy-to-prepare food packs are especially useful for working poor families with children and seniors, the organization said.

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