World Hunger Relief
Four years ago, Yum! Brands—parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s and A&W—set out to deal with a different kind of hunger when it launched a partnership with the U.N. World Food Programme, a humanitarian agency that aims in 2011 to reach more than 90 million people with food assistance in more than 70 countries. Back in 2007, Yum! executives sought to raise awareness of the global hunger crisis by mobilizing nearly 1 million employees and family members company-wide to raise funds from the 125 million weekly customers who patronize their brands during “World Hunger Relief Week.” The company and franchised restaurants in 112 countries generated $16 million while the total value of monetary donations, food donations, awareness campaigns that includes PR, in-store point-of-sale items, PSAs, volunteer hours and advertising totaled $187 million. But that was just the beginning of an annual program that has made Yum! a key corporate player in global disaster relief. In 2010, Muhammad Ali and Christina Aguilera helped WFP’s Haiti relief efforts by appearing in a global PSA underwritten by the Yum! Brands Foundation, and Yum! also funneled $500,000 from its World Hunger Relief coffers to help WFP provide food to earthquake victims. —SG