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  - Sept. 14, 2015 -  

Supply Chain Professionals to "Give Back" to Society in Meal Packing Event at the 2015 Annual Conference

Target is 45,000 Meals in Two Hours for Poor Across the Globe Says Monsanto's Mark Baxa

  
     
     
  by SCDigest Editorial Staff  
     
 

A new and very interesting wrinkle for this year's annual CSCMP conference Sept. 27-30 at the convention center in downtown San Diego, CA.

SCDigest Says:

The packaged meals such as the 45,000 that will be created at CSCMP in effect go into a pool, awaiting enough volume to fill up an ocean container.

 

 

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On Sunday Sept. 27 from 2 to 4 p.m., CSCMP is looking for more than 200 volunteers to assemble meals that will ultimately be delivered to poor families across the globe. The project is being held in conjunction with the Stop Hunger Now Organization, and is sponsored at CSCMP by Monsanto and CH Robinson, which are combining to pick up the costs of the food that goes into the meals and shipping the prepackaged meals via ocean container wherever that winds up being for people in need.

So the sponsors will pick up the food and shipping costs, while CSCMP conference attendees will supply the labor to get the job done.

The goal is ambitious. CSCMP plans to package 45,000 meals in those two hours.

According to Mark Baxa, VP of global procurement strategy at Monsanto and a key resource in pulling this CSCMP effort together, the volunteers will work at tables of eight, running an assembly line packaging bulk rice, dried vegetables, proteins and other ingredients that can serve as a meal for a family of four. Other volunteers will serve as "runners," Baxa says, delivering the bulk ingredients to the "work cells" and taking away the finished kits.

Given this is happening at a supply chain event, will the assembly process use Lean principles to maximize productivity and throughput?

Probably not this first year, laughs Baxa.

"Maybe next time we'll throw some process engineering and IT at it to boost efficiency," he joked with Supply Chain Digest.

Baxa himself has participated in a similar event before, with Monsanto supply chain managers from across the globe packing a similar number of meals at a company supply chain meeting a few years ago. It was a great experience, he says.

Our Supply Chain Television Channel anchor Jim Jones has also participated in a similar meal preparation event, which he said was "both fun and rewarding."

With a goal of more than 200 volunteers, CSCMP spokesperson Madeleine Miller-Holodnicki said that at the end of last week, about 150 conference attendees had signed up for the effort. If you want to register as a participant, you can do so at the link here. There will also be information about how to participate on-site at the registration area that Sunday.


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Stop Hunger Now was founded in 1998 and began delivering meals like this in 2005. It says that in 2015 it will package and deliver over 45 million meals. In 2014, almost 40 million meals were delivered across more than 36 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia.


The packaged meals such as the 45,000 that will be created at CSCMP in effect go into a pool, awaiting enough volume to fill up an ocean container, according to VP of Marketing Emily Everett.

It takes about 285,000 meals to fill up a container, Everett told SCDigest, meaning the CSCMP effort will fill up about 15% of a full container load.

 

All the food ingredients are locally sourced, Everett says, meaning 100% of the CSCMP  packaged food will come from US farmers. She says CSCMP will be notified when the meals it prepares are shipped and where they are going.

 

"I think I can speak for CH Robinson in saying that Monsanto is very proud to sponsor this event, and that it is very consistent with our respective sustainability missions," Baxa told SCDigest. "We're all looking for a chance to give back, and this is an outstanding opportunity to do so."



What do you think of this new CSCMP meal packing event? Have you participated in a similar effort before? How was it? Please let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section (email) or button below.


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