The Journey of a Cereal Donation

Seven Sundays, a family-run cereal company based in Minnesota, found themselves with truckloads of extra cereal—literally. 

The cereal, while still nutritious, safe to eat, and delicious, could not be sold due to a manufacturing error. As a B-corporation committed to reducing food waste, Seven Sundays wanted to make sure the cereal made it to the breakfast tables of neighbors who needed it. That’s when they called Second Harvest Heartland for help.

As the region’s largest food bank—and the second largest in the nation—Second Harvest Heartland accepts donations from local organizations in truckload quantities. Through this Seven Sundays donation, multiple truckloads of cereal were added to the emergency hunger-relief system in Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

“Given especially recent food security and access concerns, we saw an opportunity to partner with Second Harvest Heartland for a win-win—saving food from going to waste and providing better breakfast options for our neighbors in Minnesota and Wisconsin,” said co-founder and Chief Cultivation Officer Brady Barnstable.

Volunteers in our dry clean room packing the bulk cereal into family-size bags.

Some donations, like Seven Sundays’ cereal, arrive needing to be repacked into manageable quantities for distribution to food shelves and other meal programs. Second Harvest Heartland’s Volunteer Center includes two clean rooms, which enable us to receive bulk donations of ready-to-eat products—such as cereal—that can then be repacked to sizes that will fit in a neighbor's pantry. The 120 pallets of cereal that arrived at Second Harvest Heartland were repacked and labeled by hundreds of volunteers over the course of a few weeks.

Volunteers labeling and packing up bags of cereal for distribution.

After being repacked and labeled, the cereal was then added to our online ordering system for our partner food shelves and hunger-relief programs to add to their regular deliveries from Second Harvest Heartland’s distribution center.

Cereal to be shared across Minnesota and western Wisconsin with our neighbors. 

Thanks to this donation from Seven Sundays, the food banks in our region can provide around 90,000 delicious, nutrient-packed cereal meals!