The food and beverage industry continues to step up and lend support to those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this roundup, we highlight brands’ efforts to give back, including Loco Coffee’s “Pay It Forward” snack care package featuring Boston area food and beverage brands and Nutpods’ efforts to support nurses and local coffee shops during National Nurses Day.
Loco Coffee Partners With Boston Area Brands for ‘Pay It Forward’ Care Package
Boston-based cold brew coffee brand Loco Coffee has teamed up with local brands Drink Simple, IQ Bar, Bohana and Unreal on “Pay It Forward” care packages. All proceeds for the care packages will benefit Fuel the Fight Boston, which has raised over $50,000 through GoFundMe to purchase meals from Boston area restaurants and donate them to local frontline healthcare workers.
“We were trying to figure out how we could support restaurants and how we could support healthcare workers,” said Loco Coffee co-founder Dan Bresciani. “It was just kind of the perfect opportunity that [Fuel The Fight Boston] was doing both.”
Bresciani said that the brand has donated 200 cases of product to hospitals in the Boston area since March. As a small business, the team worked to find a more sustainable way to give back, especially as retail sales for its products have slowed amidst the pandemic and the brand has pivoted to finding “creative ways” to market the product online. Rather than create care packages with just cold brew, Bresciani said the brand partnered with maple water brand Drink Simple (which provides maple water for Loco Coffee’s Cold Brew + Maple Water SKU) along with Boston-based snack brands to create the charitable “survival kits” which can also help raise brand awareness for the small food and beverage businesses in the area.
Since launching the packages on April 27, the brand has raised $560, and Bresciani said they’ll continue to be on sale on the brand’s website at least through the month of May for $30 each. The Loco Coffee team is fulfilling the orders themselves, and if purchasers fill out a “Special Instructions” box at checkout with a personalized message, the team will add a handwritten note in the package.
“People are looking for ways to do something for people they haven’t seen in awhile,” he said. “The idea behind it is, if you receive one, send one to someone you’re thinking of.”
Nutpods Teams Up With Coffee Shops to Give Back to Nurses
To celebrate National Nurses Day on May 6, non-dairy creamer brand Nutpods teamed up with independent coffee shops across the country to donate free coffee and creamer to nurses, medical professionals and front line responders.
Since March 15, nutpods has donated over 5,200 units of product to approximately 300 hospital locations, and continues to accept COVID-19 donation requests on its website. According to the brand, the positive response to its donation campaign inspired the Nutpods team to run a campaign focused on nurses, while also supporting local coffee shops whose foot traffic has decreased due to the pandemic.
Using its brand ambassador program, the Nutpod Squad, the brand identified coffee shops nationwide that were in need of support. The brand partnered with 10 local coffee shops around the country, including Arizona’s Elevate Coffee, Massachusetts’ Muffin House Cafe and Texas’ Merit Coffee, offering free coffee and Nutpods to all medical professionals who showed their badges at checkout. Approximately 500 nurses participated across the 10 locations, according to the brand.
“It’s a simple act of kindness that has provided some much-needed smiles in a tough time,” said Nutpods senior manager of digital, Helen Joel, who ran the activation. “The responses we have received are overwhelmingly positive. Reading through the different stories of courage and dedication, I am so happy Nutpods is able to support them in some small way.”
USDA’s Meals to You Expands Reach in Partnership with PepsiCo
The USDA announced this week it was expanding Meals to You, an initiative to feed low-income children in rural areas in partnership with PepsiCo, Baylor University Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty and McLane Global. Meals to You will now feed 5 million children impacted by school closures due to COVID-19 per week, five times its original goal.
Meals to You has donated 3.5 million meals to children in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, and has received requests from 23 more states and Puerto Rico over the last few weeks. PepsiCo has donated products across its brand portfolio, which includes Tropicana, Quaker and Rold Gold, and has leveraged its distribution network to deliver meals to children in rural areas.
“We’re proud to partner with the USDA and Baylor to deliver meals directly to students who need them now more than ever,” said Matt Smith, senior director of Food for Good at PepsiCo, in a press release. “In this time when millions of children are affected by school closures, it is a privilege to bring our scale and experience to this innovative partnership to serve our neighbors in need nationwide.”
Other Good News From Around the Industry:
- Keurig Dr Pepper has donated $250,000 to the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation (NRAEF) Employee Relief Fund that provides cash grants to restaurant workers in need. Dr Pepper also launched limited edition “We’re a Pepper” t-shirts, with 100% of all profits going directly back to the fund, available for $30 at TogetherWePepper.com.
- In Austin, Texas, sparkling yerba mate brand Clean Cause has donated 12,240 cans to hospital workers, families removed from domestic violence situations during COVID-19 and grocery store employees. The brand, which donates 50% of profits to people in recovery from substance addiction, has seen a 40% increase in applications for sober living scholarships and gave away $25,000 in scholarships in April.
- Grey Goose is hiring out-of-work bartenders for House Pour, a video series that is now live on the brand’s social media channels, featuring bartenders from around the world demonstrating how to make a favorite cocktail. The video will include a toast to someone in the industry who has positively impacted the featured bartender or their shift crew. The videos will send viewers to links to donate to the United States Bartender Guild, Tales of the Cocktail Foundation and Another Round Another Rally.
- Cherry juice maker Cherrish has donated 100,000 bottles of product to FEMA to include in meal kits provided to families in need.
- Soylent has donated more than 500,000 meals to food banks around the country since the beginning of the pandemic. This week, the brand will be donating pallets of product to more than 10 hospitals around the country.
- Dannon Light + Fit launched a new app, Working Well, with actress and dancer Julianne Hough, and her fitness platform, KINRGY in partnership with the Movemeant Foundation, a nonprofit supporting fitness instructors impacted by closures due to COVID-19. In partnership with Hough, Light + Fit will be donating $200,000 to the Movemeant Foundation.
- Ocean Spray is donating thousands of herbal tonics and shots from its new plant-based functional beverage brand Atoka to first responders in New York, Washington, D.C, Massachusetts and Washington State.
- Hendrick’s Gin announced a “Pour It Forward,” social media program backed by William Grant & Sons’ Stand Fast Campaign, a company-wide initiative established to assist bartenders affected by COVID-19 get back to work. Hendrick’s brand ambassadors will nominate bartenders nationwide to post videos of “curious cocktail creations” with Hendrick’s Gin and those bartenders will nominate other bartenders to do the same. All bartenders will then be compensated through the Stand Fast Fund.
- CBD brand ZOLT has partnered with Brands x Better to donate 2% of its gross sales to their partners at the National Young Farmers Coalition.
- Nestlé Waters North America has donated 248,000 gallons of Arrowhead Water to the Navajo Nation for emergency relief.
- Ficks Beverage Co launched a Movie Night Box featuring its mixers as well as products from other brands, with all benefits donated to the United States Bartenders Guild National Charity Foundation.
- In honor of National Nurses Week, Waterloo Sparkling Water is selecting 500 nurses to receive a free case of Waterloo. The brand’s Instagram followers can nominate nurses on Waterloo’s page through May 12.