The Hawaii-based shipping company Matson announced last week it will donate free ocean shipping of food supplies to food banks in parts of its service area, which includes Alaska, through 2023.
Jim Baldwin is the CEO of the Food Bank of Alaska. He said Matson was already donating about two containers of shipping to his food bank each month.
“And now they are committing to a much larger scale … to help ensure that when we need product brought up from the Lower 48 that we can tap into their container ships,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin said it costs roughly $20,000 to ship one container of food. Normally, they bring up about 40 containers a year, but the need has been greater this year. He said this new commitment is extremely generous.
“It’s huge. Yeah, otherwise we’d be spending a lot of money on transportation instead of feeding people,” Baldwin said.
His food bank is part of the national Feeding America network and serves the entire state. Baldwin said that food insecurity in the state shot up from 11% to 18% with the pandemic.
Matson officials could not be reached for comment, but CEO Matt Cox said in a press release, “We are committing to support our food banks for the next three years in order to help them maximize their capacity to help families recover.”
The company’s overall commitment of $5 million in cash and services applies to Hawaii, Alaska and Guam. In Alaska, Matson serves Anchorage, Kodiak and Dutch Harbor.
