Ozarks Food Harvest receives 36K-pound cheese donation

Arden Hills, Minn.-based agricultural cooperative Land O'Lakes Inc. yesterday delivered a 36,000-pound donation of cheese to Springfield nonprofit Ozarks Food Harvest.

The donation marks the 92nd in Land O'Lakes’s 2010-established First Run Program, created to deliver truckloads of foods annually to food banks, according to a news release.

Protein-rich food items are a needed commodity in southwest Missouri, where one in six individuals and one in four children struggle with hunger. Ozarks Food Harvest serves 28 counties and distributes some 14 million meals a year to 260,000 people.

“Protein-rich food items, including dairy products like cheese, are at the top of our holiday wish list,” said Denise Gibson, the food bank’s development and communication director, in the release. “This gift comes at an ideal time for us and for our network of 200 agencies who directly support to people in need.”

Land O'Lakes does business in all of the U.S. and over 60 countries, according to the release.