Central Missouri Meat and Sausage has helped process thousands of pounds of ground pork for Missouri food banks thanks to a partnership between the Missouri Pork Association and Missouri Farmers Care.
"One in three kids in the United States will face food insecurity," Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe said. "And when we have our agricultural partners coming together to team up with somebody like (Cory Hawkins, owner of CMMS) to help an organization that can distribute to food banks statewide, that's when we have Show-Me pride. That's when we're Missouri-proud."
Kehoe and representatives from Missouri agriculture gathered Wednesday morning at Central Missouri Meat and Sausage in Fulton to celebrate 40,000 servings of ground pork donated to Harvesters - The Community Food Network in Kansas City.
"We've worked with what we call the pork partnership and a group of sponsors around the state to help bring ground pork to folks that need it and can't get it otherwise," MPA Vice President Don Nikodim said.
MPA and MFC are helping connect Missouri pig farmers to local processors. In June, the partnership collected 202 hogs for processing, yielding 93,000 servings to The Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri, the St. Louis Area Foodbank and the Southeast Missouri Food Bank. Later this month, more will be donated to Ozarks Food Harvest in Springfield.
"As often as we can get Cory to give us space, we're getting more pigs here and more ground pork out to the food bank," Nikodim said.
Nikodim said the partners would welcome the involvement of more sponsors and the expansion of the effort.
"One of the ongoing needs of food banks year-round, pandemic or no pandemic, is protein - good, healthy meat," Scott Baker, of Feeding Missouri, said. "That's why we're so excited about this. This really addresses a significant problem, a significant deficit food banks have."
Baker said the pork donation is a good example of how Missouri agriculture cares about communities.
"They really back up the talk and they really come through to help feed their neighbors," Baker said. "This will go onto the table of families that are struggling right now that are having a hard time making ends meet."
Nikodim thanked Hawkins and Central Missouri Meat and Sausage for their involvement.
"We're just thankful that all these folks stepped up and did what they did to make this possible," Hawkins said.
Organizations including Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, Missouri Farm Bureau Insurance, Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council, Missouri Soybean Association, FCS Financial, MFA Incorporated, Archer Daniels Midland, Forrest and Charlotte Lucas, founders of Protect the Harvest, Missouri Corn Merchandising Council, Paseo Biofuels LLC and Biofuels LLC donated to cover processing and transportation costs.