Working Together to Feed Chicagoland

The number of food insecure Americans has grown during the Coronavirus pandemic, and at ADM, we understood that we needed to act fast—and work together—to help address hunger in our home community of Chicago. As the pandemic erupted, we asked Bigger Table, the nonprofit arm of Chicagoland Food & Beverage Network, to fast track a larger project that could sustain more people. And part of the answer to the big problem of growing food insecurity comes in a small package: we've created a tasty, high-protein, low-sugar chocolate meal replacement mix, which has been packaged into more than 200,000 servings.

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"ADM committed ingredients to advance this effort, and with ADM's leadership, nutrition expertise, and vast portfolio of functional ingredients, we concepted and created this product from scratch in less than four months" said Alan Reed, Executive Director of Bigger Table.

Each Bigger Table partner company behind this effort donated time, services, know-how, ingredients, flavors, and skills to develop this delicious and nutritious product that will be donated to food banks free of charge (retail value of this mix is estimated at $3 a packet). In total, an estimated 19,800 pounds of ingredients, plus packaging, recipe creation, manufacturing time, food safety plans, and more have been donated in-kind to make this product.

"We are proud to lead an industry effort that utilizes ingredients as a solution to feeding people in need," says Reed. "We are forging new paths between caring local businesses and food-insecure Americans."

Others contributing to this Protein Mix include: Bader Rutter (product branding), Blueshoon (website development/management), Coyle Print Group (product labeling), ConnectFood (food safety), Dairy Farmers of America (dry milk, milk protein), Edlong (dairy flavorings), FONA International (flavorings), Imbibe (recipe development, sweeteners), Lithotype Co. (product packaging), Olam Cocoa (cocoa), and Proven Partners Group (manufacturing), and Sweetener Supply (salt).