Recently Second Harvest had the chance to ask Audrey Leduc, McCain’s Senior Manager, Planet-Friendly Practices, five quick questions. Audrey’s role at McCain is supporting planet-friendly innovation across McCain’s supply chain, ensuring environmental compliance and advising on customer, consumer and employee outreach on the topic of sustainability.
1. Tell us about McCain’s Global Sustainability Strategy. What motivated your commitment to build thriving communities?
Since our founding on a farm in New Brunswick in 1957, helping the rural communities where we live and operate to thrive has been a priority. In 2020, the pandemic further highlighted the fragility of many communities around the world, including rural and marginalized communities. In the countries where we operate, we witnessed millions of people facing unemployment, while food banks struggled to keep up with demand. In response, our McCain teams expanded our existing partnerships with food banks and we were able to donate the equivalent of more than 53 million meals globally.
2. How has supporting Second Harvest impacted your team and your greater community?
Our partnership with Second Harvest is brand new and we are excited to collaborate with them to achieve our ambitious North American objectives, including:
- Increase food donations – McCain will continue to donate products and raw food to reach the equivalent of 17 million meals donated in the 2022 fiscal year.
- Reduce food waste – Achieving zero food waste objective, ensuring that both raw and finished products are enjoyed and never thrown out.
- Volunteering Opportunities – McCain launched McCain Chips In, an exciting new program enabling employees to benefit from a paid day off to volunteer and support the communities where we operate.
3. If you could say one thing to people and organizations considering supporting Second Harvest, what would it be?
Second Harvest is a global thought leader on food recovery. Their Food Rescue app, which helps local food donors share unsold healthy surpluses with non-profits in their communities, is easy to use and a testimony to Second Harvest’s desire to continuously innovate. In terms of technology for Food Banks, they are leading and have an ability to predict their partner’s needs.
4. Did McCain’s Global Sustainability Strategy change in response to the global pandemic?
Although life fundamentally changed for many in 2020, the acute challenges posed by climate change and our fragile food system only became more evident. We are proud of the significant strides made towards achieving our Sustainability Strategy last year and the pandemic underscores the emphasis on the food industry and its stakeholders – furthering our resolve to act.
5. What does “No Waste. No Hunger” mean to McCain?
We are fortunate to be in a position where we can make a difference for those in need and are proud to play a role in improving the communities where we live, work and play. We focus our efforts where we can have the greatest positive impact: no waste, no hunger means continuing to grow our business sustainably while ensuring that our finished goods and the raw products that we use always sustain our communities and never become waste. This is part of our objective to continue to bring people together and unite them towards planet-friendly food.
