Food for a Cause

[Malawry]

Those breast cancer pink ribbons pop up more and more places lately. I just bought some Fleishman's yeast that urged me to "bake for the cure!"--they donate $0.25 to the Susan Komen foundation for every UPC from yeast that you mail in.

When I worked as a sorority chef, we saved a million Yoplait foil lids for the same foundation, likewise marketed with the Race for the Cure program.

For a while there was even a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook festooned with pink ribbon imagery.

Are there other food and food-related products that do this sort of thing? Not necessarily breast cancer...although I can't recall other diseases getting this attention from the food industry offhand. (Wouldn't it be, I dunno, appropriate for heart disease to get equal billing from Big Food Business?) It would be nice to chronicle them in one spot. I may be cynical, but I pay more attention to these small actions since I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer.

[heidih]

We started saving the Yoplait foil tops when that came up until we read the fine print about the max they were going to contribute which seemed like it would be reached in no time at all. Maybe memory is faulty, but I would check the tiny print that looks like boilerplate.

[JAZ]

Chantal has a line of items -- "LiveStrong" -- the sales of which benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

But the pink items benefiting the Susan G. Komen foundation are certainly the ones you see most often in cookware. KitchenAid, Emile Henry and Riedel all have items that benefit it.

[Dana]

For anyone mailing in those pink Yoplait lids, please use a strong, padded-type envelope that you seal well. If you put them in a regular envelope, they rip open in Postal Service automated equipment, and little pink lids go everywhere.

signed,

USPS employee

[Pierogi]

My addled brain refuses to come up with the right slogan, but there definitely is a campaign for women's heart health......and Kellogg's participates.

It has to do with wearing a red dress, and there's a specific month where the ads/promos are all over the broadcast and print media (I want to say February so it connects with Valentine's Day).

For sure Special K is affiliated with it, and I believe other Kellogg's products too. I think Hanes Her Way also is a sponsor. It seems to me that other food companies are also affiliated, but I'll be dipped if I can remember any right now.

[Kouign Aman]

Those breast cancer pink ribbons pop up more and more places lately. I just bought some Fleishman's yeast that urged me to "bake for the cure!"--they donate $0.25 to the Susan Komen foundation for every UPC from yeast that you mail in.

When I worked as a sorority chef, we saved a million Yoplait foil lids for the same foundation, likewise marketed with the Race for the Cure program.

For a while there was even a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook festooned with pink ribbon imagery.

Are there other food and food-related products that do this sort of thing? Not necessarily breast cancer...although I can't recall other diseases getting this attention from the food industry offhand. (Wouldn't it be, I dunno, appropriate for heart disease to get equal billing from Big Food Business?)  It would be nice to chronicle them in one spot. I may be cynical, but I pay more attention to these small actions since I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer.

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If a person only had one yeast upc to mail in, it would make more sense to donate the stamp!

I haven't seen a tie-in (yet) but I can imagine prostate cancer research tie-ins to tomato sauce/paste/juice and to pumpkin seeds.

The pink ribbon folks do seem to have a high level of marketing savvy.

[Malawry]

Pink is now all over a special assorted package of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies at Costco--eat cookies for the cure! (As if I needed another reason to buy Milanos...)

[Smithy]

It's true: the pink stuff is being increasing marketed to help support the cure. One of my recent magazines or catalogs has a whole page of pink "support the cure" kitchen items; the only thing I remember offhand is the ice cream scoop (the gel-filled kind). KitchenAid was, at one time, marketing a pink version of its stand mixer. I don't know whether that's still offered or was a limited version.

Is McDonald's still doing the aluminum pop-can tab collection for, uhm, MS research? It was a big deal about 10 years ago, but I heard about it again only recently.

[moira27]

Don't forget the Pink M&M's in both plain and peanut.

Yes, I'm only buying to support the cause

[Pierogi]

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so we'll be seeing lots of pink ribbons for a while. Which is a *good thing*.

The King Arthur Flour catalog I got in the mail today had an entire page devoted to Pink Ribbon items. Lots of KA things, including the stand mixer, some vanilla extract with a pink ribbon wrapped around the neck of the bottle, spatulas, and other stuff.

Wear Pink !

[Jamie Lee]

I don't know if it's a national thing, but my local chain supermarkets do fund raising efforts by asking if you want to "round up" your grocery bill. I always say yes (if it's too low, I will sometimes add an extra dollar) - it has little to no impact to my bottom line, but as I understand it, it raises millions for multple causes - breast cancer research, prostate cancer awareness, heart diease prevention.... I've always thought it was a clever approach.

[prasantrin]

I won't usually buy products for philanthropic reasons, unless it's a product I normally purchase. I prefer to donate my money directly, rather than through large companies who need the tax credit far less than I do.

I find it less than generous for those companies to base their donations on products sold, rather than on just donating outright, with no strings attached. I'd have far more respect for (and be far more likely to buy products from) a company that did the latter.

[helenjp]

I found that Japanese ceramics manufacturer Kyocera has a Pink Ribbon range...I was looking for a small mandolin set and found they had a pink version. I was quite happy with the Pink Ribbon tie-up in this case, because it can be all too hard to make healthy food just when you need it most.