Food & Beverage

Meijer generating 250K restaurant-provided holiday meals

Jackie Bruce prepares hundreds of individually packaged stir fry dishes at Timothy's Restaurant for Meijer team members in Lincoln Township, Michigan. (Provided)

December 3, 2020

Meijer recently launched a holiday meal program designed to support local restaurants and show appreciation for its frontline store and distribution center workers at the same time, a news release said.

At Thanksgiving, the grocery chain's nearly 300 facilities began the program, which will run through Christmas and is providing four holiday meals for every Meijer store and distribution center employee. Each is catered by a different restaurant from the surrounding community.

"As a family-owned Midwestern company, we know that communities are built around local businesses," Meijer President & CEO Rick Keyes said in the release. "These meals not only show our support of our team members, but also of the local businesses our communities depend upon. Both groups truly deserve a little extra appreciation this holiday season."

Meijer said that as a result of the effort, local businesses will cater more than 250,000 special meals by year's end.

"It means a lot to have Meijer's support," Chef Timothy Sizer, owner of Timothy's Restaurant in Union Pier, Michigan said in the release. His store provided 275 Hawaiian chicken stir-fry meals to the Lincoln Township and Benton Harbor Meijer stores last week. "It was a huge boost for us. I was able to bring in three extra people to help prepare the meals on a day we wouldn't normally be open. They were thrilled for the extra shifts."

Timothy's Restaurant has seen its volume drop by 80%, and Sizer had to reduce his team of 35 to six, as a result of the pandemic's effects on the restaurant industry. Having partnered with Sizer in March on a similar initiative to feed store team members from local restaurants being affected by the pandemic, Lincoln Township Meijer Store Director Rob Vassar was eager to support him again.

"We are so pleased to be able to provide such a high-quality meal for our team members as a sign of our appreciation," Vassar said. "The food is great, and it's made even better by knowing we're supporting a local business when they need us."

Meijer is a Grand Rapids, Michigan.-based retailer that operates 256 supercenters and grocery stores throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin.