Chicken Farmers of Ontario and Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Announce Partnership to Provide Ontario Grown Chicken to Ontario Food Banks

Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO) and Maple Leaf Foods Inc., one of Canada's leading producers of value added prepared meats and poultry products, formally announced their partnership to provide Ontario's food banks with a steady supply of healthy, high quality, locally-grown chicken.

The partnership includes Feed Ontario, the province's largest collective of hunger-relief organizations. Rob Flack, Ontario's Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness and MPP for Elgin-Middlesex-London, joined the announcement, which took place at the London Food Bank. Also present were representatives from Maple Leaf Foods, food bank staff and volunteers, and local chicken farmers.

The partnership will support the CFO Cares: Farmers to Food Banks Program, a program that enables Ontario chicken farmers to donate their chicken to food banks across Ontario.

The CFO Cares: Farmers to Food Banks Program was launched in 2015, in partnership with Feed Ontario, an organization that unites food banks, industry partners, and local communities in efforts to end poverty and hunger across Ontario. The CFO Cares: Farmers to Food Banks Program, at its core, helps to ensure Ontario food banks can access high quality protein, like chicken, which is in high demand. CFO's family-run farms are each eligible to donate up to 300 birds per year, through the CFO Cares: Farmers to Food Banks Program. Ontario's world-class chicken farmers have donated at least 1 million meals annually since the inception of the program.

These significant donations are made possible in part by Feed Ontario, which provides logistical and administrative support, and Maple Leaf Foods, which processes and tray- packs the Ontario-grown chicken. The tray-packed chicken is distributed throughout the Feed Ontario distribution network, allowing for food bank volunteers to spend less valuable time repackaging chicken and allowing for more food banks with capacity constraints, including smaller food banks, to participate in the CFO Cares: Farmers to Food Banks Program.

CFO Cares: Farmers to Food Banks donors are eligible for a tax credit of 25 per cent of the fair market value of their donated chicken through the Government of Ontario's Community food program donation tax credit.

Food bank use remains at an all-time high, 2024 marks the eighth consecutive year of food bank use increases with more than 1 million Ontarians relying on a food bank, a 25 per cent increase over 2023 and nearly double that of four years ago. With now 1 in 16 Ontarians relying on a food bank, Ontario chicken farmers and Maple Leaf Foods are continuing to step-up to provide high quality proteins to people in need with this recently announced partnership.