Yum! Brands, parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, A&W and Taco Bell, has announced that it's on track to beat its hunger relief committment made at the Clinton Global Initiative two years ago.
The company's original pledge was to raise $80 million in five years. The initiative helps the United Nations' World Food Programme provide 200 million meals to schoolchildren in developing countries.
In the two years since Yum! made the pledge, the company has raised $42.5 million; donated 11 million hours of hunger relief volunteer service; donated $120 million worth of its prepared food to hunger agencies in the United States; and generated approximately $100 million worth of awareness to the program.
Funds have been raised through Yum! Brands’ annual World Hunger Relief global effort that is kicking off soon in the U.S. and other countries.
Yum! Brands' program is the world's largest private sector hunger relief effort, covering 110 countries, with 37,000 restaurants and more than 1 million employees participating.
“Yum! Brands is determined to be a leader in wiping out hunger,” said David Novak, chairman and CEO, Yum! Brands, Inc. “As the world’s largest restaurant company, we are committed to raising even more awareness, volunteerism and money to help the approximately 1 billion hungry people around the globe.”
In 2008, President Bill Clinton announced Yum! Brands' five-year commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative. During that first year, the company raised $17.5 million.
For more than 10 years, Yum! has also donated more than $60 million of prepared food annually to the underprivileged in the U.S.
WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, feeding more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries each year.
