‘Meals on Wheels’ gets a boost from Moy Park

Moy Park with help from several other businesses, is cooking thousands of meals for vulnerable members of its local communities.
Moy Park’s culinary team in Craigavon has turned its new product development kitchen into a production line, and is creating 1,000 healthy, nutritious meals a week to be distributed by The Resource Centre Derry (RCD) during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
Local companies who have donated produce for the meals include Kerry Foods Portadown, Wilson’s Country, The Flavour Works, Irwin’s Bakery and Daily Fresh. JMC Packaging has also donated all the food containers and installed a special tray-sealing machine at Moy Park to ensure all meals arrive safe and fresh. 
The RCD provides vital services and advice to people in the North West including welfare support, financial hardship advice as well as training and day-care. The group also provides a ‘Meals on Wheels’ service and operates a Community Shop which has seen demand more than double due to ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
Moy Park’s Head of Culinary, Aaron Dixon said: “We are keen to do all that we can to help those in need, so we approached our food charity partner FareShare to see who we could link in with locally. RCD provides invaluable help to the local community and has seen demand for its food services skyrocket beyond their capacity. With incredibly generous contributions from food and packaging companies in the area, we’re delighted to prepare and donate these meals to help RCD reach those people most in need of support. The meals we are providing can all be quickly heated up at home and have been made fresh by our culinary team on-site. I can’t describe the sense of pride the team here and all the suppliers feel by helping such a worthwhile cause in this difficult time.”
Paddy McCarron, Senior Manager, The Resource Centre Derry said: “On behalf of the RCS Board of Directors and management, I extend my gratitude to the hard work of the Moy Park team which is helping us provide an essential service to those in need. The reaction from the local community to the additional meals has been incredible and we have extended our opening hours and delivery services to meet demand.  It great to see everyone – from local businesses to our own volunteers – going the extra mile to support and protect our vulnerable people.”