Speaking at the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, today, General Mills CEO Ken Powell addressed attendees on the company's efforts to fight hunger in Africa through collaboration and employee volunteerism. He shared the company's experience launching the nonprofit Partners in Food Solutions (PFS), and discussed General Mills' distinct ability as a food company to help alleviate hunger by leveraging the skills of employee volunteers who are eager to give back.
“We are hungry to help the entrepreneur in Tanzania who is trying to package her products and access new markets," Powell said. "We are hungry to help the food scientist in Zambia searching for solutions to retain food flavor and optimize nutrients. And we are hungry to help the farmer in Malawi who, by selling her crop, will generate the money needed to support her family and pay for her children to go to school."
Powell announced Partners in Food Solutions (PFS) will be expanding through a renewed public-private partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which will enable PFS—a non-profit organization that links the technical and business expertise of volunteer employees at General Mills, Cargill and DSM to small and medium-sized mills and food processors in the developing world—to expand the reach of the technical and business expertise it provides to small- and medium-sized food processors in sub-Saharan Africa.
Under the new agreement, USAID and PFS will deepen their collaboration to improve African food security by bringing expertise, knowledge and resources to the continent's food-processing sector. PFS will provide more than $8 million in resources to the project, leveraging nearly $7 million in funding from USAID. The public-private partnership—implemented by TechnoServe and part of the U.S. government's Feed the Future and Global Health initiatives—will continue to help improve African food security.
