HelloFresh and St. Mary’s Food Bank work together to combat food insecurity.
At HelloFresh, our mission goes beyond providing fresh and nutritious meal kits to our customers. Through our Meals with Meaning program, we partner with organizations to combat food insecurity and provide HelloFresh meal kits to those in need.
In Phoenix, Arizona, we’re proud to work alongside St. Mary’s Food Bank, the world’s first food bank. Founded in 1967 by John Van Hengel—who later went on to establish the organization that is now Feeding America—St. Mary’s has provided more than 1.5 billion meals to children, families and seniors throughout Arizona in its 57-year history.
With our HelloFresh distribution center in Phoenix, we recently celebrated an incredible milestone with St. Mary’s Food Bank—1 million meals donated to AZ residents!
We’re excited to share more about the partnership and the impact it’s made from Jerry Brown, St. Mary’s Director of Public Relations.
HF: How/when did your partnership with HelloFresh begin?
JB: HelloFresh has been providing more than 2,000 meal kits per week for the past two years, a great addition to our homebound and senior delivery programs. The feedback has been very positive from our neighbors who enjoy the variety, quality, and freshness of the food. So much of the food we distribute is in the form of bulk items and our clients love the convenience of a ready-to-go fresh meal.
A teammate happily packs donated food for St. Mary’s Food Bank.
HF: Can you walk us through the process of how the HelloFresh meals are distributed? How do you ensure that homebound seniors and those most in need receive them?
JB: Each week, we receive the Meals with Meaning ingredients and recipe cards from HelloFresh and the meal kits are packed by our volunteers. We then work on distributing them through our Phoenix Neighborhood Food Center and our Home Delivery Program. To qualify for Home Delivery, participants must indicate that they have a disability, chronic illness, or lack reliable transportation to access the food bank, ensuring that those most in need receive this vital service. Each participant receives a box of non-perishable food and two HelloFresh Meal Kits, delivered directly to their door thanks to our incredible delivery partners.
HF: Is there a particular story or example that comes to mind of how HelloFresh’s donations have impacted the local community?
JB: Among the groups that receive the Meal Kits are seniors living in low-income senior apartments. Residential Coordinators often report that these recipients enjoy discussing how they’ve personalized the recipes by adding their own spices or extra vegetables. This transforms the meals into more than just food; they become a topic of conversation and a way to gather within these communities.
HF: What are some of the challenges St. Mary’s faces in combating food insecurity in Phoenix? Does HelloFresh’s Meals with Meaning program help address these challenges?
JB: The most difficult challenge for any food bank is never knowing what product you will be distributing from week to week, and whether it will be the type of product that recipients want to eat, or even know how to prepare. The Meals with Meaning program from HelloFresh provides meal stability with food that people like and are familiar with and kits and instructions on how to maximize their enjoyment. For a food bank, it’s the perfect scenario.
HelloFresh and our sister brand, Factor, work together with St. Mary’s Food Bank to donate meal kits through our Meals with Meaning program.
HF: How can local residents, businesses, or organizations get involved in supporting St. Mary’s Food Bank and its mission?
JB: St. Mary’s has more than 600 partner agencies around the state of Arizona to help us with our mission to feed the hungry. Some are food-based (smaller food banks and pantries) but the large majority offer other social services such as shelter or rehabilitation. We also have tens of thousands of volunteers who help us each year by packing food boxes, distributing them at our food bank sites, or delivering them to our homebound neighbors. Many of the latter category will have HelloFresh meals in their deliveries. Donations to St. Mary’s can come in the form of food (food drives, donations, etc.) funds (every dollar donated at www.stmarysfoodbank.org will provide five meals for neighbors in need), or your time as a volunteer to help us keep up with the soaring demand for our services.
HF: Looking ahead, how do you envision the partnership between St. Mary’s and HelloFresh evolving in the coming years?
JB: HelloFresh has started a collaboration with our LYFT and Community Kitchen programs. These programs target those with impediments to employment (previous incarceration or drug/alcohol problems) and teach both labor skills and life skills to help students overcome their challenges and find career opportunities with their new employers. HelloFresh has already made its first LYFT student hire and we are looking forward to more in the future.
HF: How does it feel to reach the milestone of one million meals distributed to the Phoenix community?
JB: To have reached one million meals in such a short period shows both the need in the Arizona communities and the commitment HelloFresh is making to ensure as many seniors and homebound neighbors are being reached with this product as possible. To have a quality and consistent source of this kind of food is rare in the food bank world and has been a big hit with those who receive it.
HF: Is there anything else you think people should know about food insecurity?
JB: We have a great relationship with the HelloFresh people who live and work in the St. Mary’s service area. In addition to the donated food, HelloFresh team members volunteer at the food bank, packing not only the products they provide but emergency and senior food boxes to help keep our inventory levels on pace with the needs of the community. We appreciate and value our relationship with HelloFresh and look forward to many years of this great partnership.
HelloFresh team member packs food kits to donate.
Looking to the Future
St. Mary’s goal is to say “yes” to every family and neighbor in need, a promise they have kept throughout their organization’s history. We’re proud to have them as a partner and—with a commitment to extend our donations throughout 2025—look forward to making an even greater impact together as we look to the future.
To dive deeper into the inspiring work that St. Mary’s does, visit their website here and to learn more about our Meals with Meaning program, click here.
