The Aboitiz Group has joined the private sector-led national food security movement called Kain Tayo Pilipinas as part of its efforts to help make the Philippines more food secure and healthy.

A statement showed that Aboitiz Group has recently joined Kain Tayo Pilipinas, which is one of the flagship programs under the Pilipinas Kontra Gutom (PKG), a movement led by private corporations, media, non-government organizations (NGOs).

PKG is being implemented together with the Department of Education, Department of Science and Technology- Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI), and the National Nutrition Council.

This program utilizes a three-fold approach of feeding, education, and collaboration, in order to holistically address the issue of hunger and malnutrition in the country. Feeding programs will be complemented by education programs, with the aim of making nutrition knowledge accessible and sustainable in every Filipino family.

Aboitiz Foundation President and COO Maribeth L. Marasigan said the group is part of PKG’s workstream 1, a multi-sectoral team that is focused to address availability and accessibility in its goal of elevating farming as a dignified and sustainable profession that will contribute to food security.

“We in the Aboitiz Group support Pilipinas Kontra Gutom and Kain Tayo in its mission to alleviate malnutrition and achieve zero Hunger by 2030," Marasigan said.

“In the face of the economic slowdown brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to collaborate and work together to expand our reach and to help feed more Filipinos in need,” she added.

Meanwhile, aside from the financial donation of the Aboitiz Group to the ‘Kain Tayo Pilipinas’ program, the Group also continues to advance business and communities through its own social initiatives that address involuntary hunger and advocate for food security in the country.

For instance, the “Kutitap Feeding Program” of Pilmico, the Aboitiz Group’s food unit, addresses both goals by addressing malnutrition in public schools while supporting local businesses.

The Kutitap Feeding Program was launched as a sustainable initiative, empowering local bakeries through the technical training of bakers and equipment donation, and the regular donation of nutritious baked goods to children in public schools.

Such initiative helps sustain the businesses of the bakeries involved in the program and significantly decreases the number of severely wasted and wasted students while increasing school attendance.

Further, Kutitap bakeries augmented their sales volume by 71 percent (on average) by supplying bread for the Kutitap Feeding Program.

During the Kain Tayo Pilipinas launch held this week, Task Force Zero Hunger Chairman Karlo Nograles said an estimated four million Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger, and that hunger stays high at 16.8 percent of families as of May 2021, as shown in the first quarter 2021 Social Weather Station survey conducted recently.

Nograles explained that although the hunger rate is lower than the 2020 annual average of 21.1 percent, it is still double the December 2019 pre-pandemic level of 8.8 percent.