BelVita has partnered with food charity FareShare to donate up to 100,000 meals to families in need.
The biscuit brand’s new ‘Give a Smile’ initiative comes as 13.3 million people struggle with food insecurity, and three million adults have reported to go without food for an entire day due to affordability or access issues.
Running until 30 October, the campaign uses interactive facial recognition billboards to register ‘smiles’ and collect donations for FareShare.
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Mondelēz International BelVita brand manager, Amy Lucas, said: “At BelVita, we believe in the power of positive energy. So, we want to use the power of positivity to help raise donations for FareShare.
“We understand that even the smallest of actions such as smiling at a stranger can make their day ‘that’ much better, which inspired us to use the power of a smile to spread positivity, helping others in need.
“Retailers can get involved by stocking up on the full BelVita product range to drive awareness of ‘Give a Smile’ and by encouraging shoppers to head to the BelVita Give a Smile website or look out for the billboards near stores to help fight food poverty.”
In May, Sainsbury’s pledged to donate 50p for every product sold in its Inspired to Cook range to Comic Relief, as part of its Nourish the Nation initiative to help tackle food poverty.
This comes as 80% of the UK public are calling on the government to extend free school meals to children in households that receive Universal Credit (UC), as the number of families suffering from food poverty doubles.