McCormick Lends Tiny Kitchens to Local Heroes

McCormick & Co. is shining a light on local heroes across the country with the launch of “Tiny Kitchens x Big Meals," a holiday campaign leveraging the star power of Eric Stonestreet, the Emmy-award winner best known for his role in ABC-TV’s Modern Family.

For the holidays this year, McCormick selected three “hometown heroes” who have made a difference in their communities during the pandemic to honor and award them with a special Tiny Kitchen x Big Meal package, comprising: 

• The temporary use of a McCormick tiny kitchen with a full-size oven, sink and the appliances and gadgets needed for a meal preparation,
• A full range of McCormick spices, seasoning mixes and extracts to make a large meal,
• McCormick holiday recipes, including two exclusive recipes made in partnership with Stonestreet (e.g. a dry brined turkey breast with apple cider gravy),
• A pantry stocked with groceries (including all the ingredients for the brand's recipes), and
• A crew that will come and take care of clean-up duties after the big meal.

Each of the three honorees were selected from the New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, and included:

• Shirley Raines, whose LA organization Beauty 2 the Streetz provides food, clothing, grooming services, and health and hygiene items to thousands of people living on Skid Row.
• Derrick Hayes, whose Big Dave's Cheesesteaks restaurant fed frontline workers at 40 hospitals across metro Atlanta and hosted free food happy hours for customers during the pandemic. He also donated $26,000 to help several businesses keep their doors open during this time.
• Angela Torres from New York’s Bronx neighborhood, who enlisted her family and friends to start a meals pantry to serve households twice every week.

Additionally, from Nov. 16-30, McCormick is enlisting the public to help identify the next round of heroes in the same three metro areas by sharing their stories via the McCormick Flavor Maker mobile app. 

For those wanting to participate outside of the areas, McCormick is encouraging nominations for a chance to win a $100 spice and seasoning collection including McCormick’s holiday flavors. Ten winners will be selected at random for this contest.

McCormick and Stonestreet’s two recipes are also available in McCormick’s Flavor Maker app along with the brand’s selection of Thanksgiving recipes. Stonestreet, who is also being commissioned to promote the campaign via his Instagram, will provide some unspecified “special surprises” for the recipients along the way, according to the brand.

"Bringing people together this time of year is super important to me, and I look forward to working with McCormick to ensure everyone's holiday season is filled with delicious food and plenty of memorable moments with their family," said Stonestreet in a recent media release. 

McCormick will conclude the campaign with a donation to a non-profit organization fighting food insecurity.

"Through Tiny Kitchens, we hope to facilitate not only big meals but even bigger memories," said Jill Pratt, chief marketing excellence officer for McCormick, in the release. "This year, we were particularly excited to give back to local community heroes to help them make the perfect meal and memories for years to come."