Food firm to help feed 300k schoolkids in typhoon-hit regions

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines’ biggest canned food company, Century Pacific Food Inc., is helping the government feed some 300,000 schoolchildren in areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda.

The feeding program administered by the Department of Education was initiated by Century Pacific-RSPo Foundation, which donated P7 million worth of company food products. These would feed about a third of the target pupils or approximately 90,000 children in the three typhoon-devastated regions in the Visayas for 15 to 20 days, said foundation’s executive advisor Emerson C. Villarante.

One of the challenges the education department faced when classes reopened starting Dec. 2 was providing regular, once-a-day feeding to the affected school children who went back to school, Villarante said.

The foundation supported the project through its KAIN Po—Kalusugan at Isipan Naalagaan Feeding program—which by itself had served 7.2 million meals to its children beneficiaries in 100 feeding sites across the Philippines since its inception in 2010, he said.

KAIN Po, a brainchild of Century Pacific founder and chairman Ricardo S. Po Sr., seeks to serve 2.8 million more meals this year to reach a milestone of 10 million meals, he added.

Century Pacific is the company behind household names like Century Tuna, 555 Sardines, Argentina Corned Beef, Swift and Birch Tree.