Albertsons Launches National Hunger-Relief Effort Again With Help from CPGs

Albertsons Cos. is building on the success of its 2024 Million Hour Volunteer Rally this April with continued support for its Nourishing Neighbors hunger-relief platform. The broader and more comprehensive 2025 effort is set to include national display efforts across all of its stores, running for four weeks, as well as additional benefits and features along with more extensive nonprofit and CPG involvement. Last year’s initiative included a national effort with select divisions participating in a two-week in-store endcap display execution.Food insecurity has increased by 30% over the past two years, with some food banks seeing 40% to 60% increased demand, according to the retailer’s data. Albertsons created the volunteer rally last year as a way to pool efforts from its divisions and vendors to make a bigger difference in the fight against hunger. The national movement supported the growing need for volunteers for its food-insecurity charitable partners. The retailer invited customers, associates and CPG partner companies to take part in Albertsons Companies Foundations’ challenge to reach 1 million volunteer hours. In-store display efforts in its Denver, Mid-Atlantic and Intermountain divisions last year called out the program, along with local nonprofit involvement nationally. A national sweepstakes accompanied a program online landing page for volunteering and shopping, social and digital ads, tags and signage in all stores, and in-person volunteer opportunities with Albertsons Cos.’ teams. CPG companies could partner in the program as a “Heart of Nourishing Neighbors” partner or as a “Community Leader” partner. The retailer identified those partners with participating product tags in the landing page that was shoppable. Albertsons also featured Heart of Nourishing Neighbors partners on an in-store endcap with SKUs they had chosen for the program.Along with the endcap, the retailer used point-of-sale materials highlighting the rally and places to scan to enter volunteer hours as well as the national sweeps, and social and digital amplification that highlighted all participating partners. Karen Sales, Albertsons Companies Foundation advisor, says the different operating divisions communicated the rally through their own advertising and press efforts. “It just shows when everybody joins together what kind of impact we can make,” she says, adding that internal press communicated about local raffles and events to participate in. “There were a lot of asks to volunteer in their communities.”Christy Duncan Anderson, executive director and president of the Albertsons Companies Foundation, says there is a great nexus between food bank needs and the skillset within the company. Associates helped pantries solve safety, operations and other issues. Last year’s efforts also included 10 division “Hackathons” and four complete pantry renovation projects. “Our associates go in and look at these food pantries with the eye of knowing everything we know about how to move people through a space,” Duncan Anderson says. “In the end, they look a lot like our stores and it brings dignity to the shopper.”“We include refrigeration units and shelving among other things to help them create basically a store within their food pantry,” adds Sales, noting that the team worked with more than 2,000 nonprofit partners to get people on their email lists and in their communities involved through newsletters, social media and email communications. An in-house toolkit provided from Nourishing Neighbors helped encourage local participation. The toolkit was received with great response, notes Duncan Anderson, because not only could people win prizes and grants, but they appreciated being able to give back to the nonprofits through their time and efforts. And it also provides a great affinity opportunity for these brands. Ben Schorr, associate director of philanthropy and social impact at Kellanova, says as part of his company’s Better Days Promise, his team is charged with collaborating on initiatives around hunger and sustainability to drive change and scale.“Albertsons has been an amazing partner in this,” he says. “We have a number of other initiatives at Albertsons that are scale activations focused on hunger throughout the year, … and really it’s about engaging and ensuring access to all types of occasions for those who face hunger.”Kellanova partnered closely with the Albertsons Companies Foundation team to understand the need for volunteers for nonprofits, and engaged as a partner in the Hackathons. Additionally, for the food pantry events, it partnered with other major CPG organizations to give back and volunteer time to help close the volunteer gaps for nonprofits. Where in-store display was executed, the company was featured through its Pringles brand with the other CPG organizations that supported the program.Jaclyn Massi, senior shopper marketing manager at Unilever, saw the rally as a triple win for the company and its Knorr brand. “We were able to bring purpose into action for our brands, support a key retail partner in this initiative, and give back to the community,” she says. "That’s what we call a win for us, Albertsons Cos. and our shoppers.”Massi says Unilever provided insights for front-end planning, and also had the opportunity to provide feedback upon completion of the 2024 program. “They do that with all of their partners and then come back to us with what they think will be the best program for everyone going forward.”She notes that what really differentiates this program, especially moving into the 2025 effort, is its full omnichannel scope. “We know that brick-and-mortar still holds the vast majority of the sales,” Massi says. “This program is unique because it extends to in store — that’s really the big step change in 2025 … and the fact that this type of program allows us to participate across all divisions.”Kellanova’s Schorr says the Million Hour Volunteer Rally effectively drove people to more deeply engage in their community to better understand the issue. “It’s that next tier that was needed, which is the focus on volunteerism,” he says. He believes Albertsons Cos.’ efforts as community leaders in driving awareness around food insecurity will have lasting effects in forging personal relationships between people and their community outside of the grocery store.“Manpower is the differentiating factor in the non-profit community because dollars are important and people are always striving for that,” he says, “We basically get two seconds in advertising to do much of anything so all non-profits say, ‘Yes, we need money.’ But they also need people and this program reinforces that.”Through the 10-year-old Nourishing Neighbors platform, the 2024 effort’s remodels, product donations and monetary donations totaled $400,000, and volunteer hours logged during the two months of the campaign were worth more than $600,000. Currently kicking off in all Albertsons Cos. stores, this year’s program runs through mid-May and is slated to be significantly larger than last year.

Albertsons Launches National Hunger-Relief Effort Again With Help from CPGs

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