NEW YORK — With the poverty rate in New York at 16%, exceeding the national average, and with poverty rates above 10% in both Connecticut and New Jersey, Fairway Market ("Fairway") (NASDAQ: FWM) is announcing today a company-wide campaign to ensure that needy families in the region will still be able to have full Thanksgiving meals this year.
Through what is being dubbed Fairway's "A Turkey for Every Table" program, the iconic New York-based grocery retailer has committed to donating 6,000 turkeys and stuffing to local food banks, social service agencies, churches, synagogues, community centers, food pantries and other organizations in the tri-state region.
Customers at all 15 Fairway locations in the tri-state area have the opportunity to help friends, neighbors and others who may be in need throughout the region by joining the company in this important and essential campaign. To do so, all Fairway stores will have point-of-purchase donation coupons at each checkout register, enabling customers to contribute either a dollar amount or the cost of a turkey and stuffing, which will then be translated into actual grocery donations to the food banks, pantries and other community organizations. The goal is to entice customers to provide the resources for 2,000 turkey and stuffing donations to add to the 4,000 to which Fairway is committing as a company, resulting in the campaign goal of 6,000 donations.
Fairway Market kicked off its holiday donation program last week on "The Meredith Vieira Show" by donating $15,000 of healthy food to City Harvest, the leading food rescue organization in the country. The $15,000 donation was made in honor of the audience members in attendance at Vieira's nationally syndicated daytime talk show, and was made to coincide with National Food Day.
"Fairway's slogan 'Like No Other Market' extends far beyond the unparalleled selection of groceries, specialty foods, and organics on our shelves," said CEO Jack Murphy. "We are committed to making a transformative impact in the communities in which our stores are located. This commitment has been part of our DNA for more than 80 years, and it will continue for 80 more years and beyond."
In fact, Fairway donates hundreds of thousands of pounds of food annually to food banks and food rescue organizations. In addition, it regularly responds to area crises. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in which Fairway's own Red Hook store experienced millions of dollars of damage and had to close for months to rebuild, the company donated truckloads of food, water and other staples to local food banks, emergency relief shelters, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters in Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the hardest hit areas in and around New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Moreover, Fairway donated and prepared more than 5,000 complete Thanksgiving and holiday dinners for hundreds of residents and families still displaced in the weeks following the superstorm. And over the past three years, Fairway has donated nearly 10,000 turkeys, plus stuffing, canned goods, produce and other fixings to City Harvest, social service agencies, churches, synagogues, community centers, food pantries and other organizations.
"Since 1998 City Harvest has enjoyed a strong partnership with Fairway Market, and collected close to 800,000 pounds of good food which we have delivered to our network of over 500 community food programs across the five boroughs," said Jilly Stephens, Executive Director of City Harvest. "City Harvest appreciates this generous holiday donation, and Fairway Market's point-of-purchase program, which help fill our trucks with food and increase awareness about hunger in our city."
About Fairway Market
Fairway Market ("Fairway") (NASDAQ: FWM) is a growth-oriented food retailer offering customers a differentiated one-stop shopping experience "Like No Other Market"®. Fairway has established itself as a leading food retailing destination in the Greater New York City metropolitan area, with stores that emphasize an extensive selection of fresh, natural and organic products, prepared foods and hard-to-find specialty and gourmet offerings, along with a full assortment of conventional groceries. Fairway is headquartered in New York, New York. For more information, please visit Fairway's website at www.fairwaymarket.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Except for historical information contained herein, the statements in this release are forward-looking and made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause Fairway's actual results in current or future periods to differ materially from forecasted results. Food retail is a large and highly competitive industry, and Fairway's business involves many risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to: our ability to open new stores on a timely basis or at all; our ability to achieve sustained sales and profitable operating margins at new and existing stores; the availability of financing to pursue our new store openings on satisfactory terms or at all; our ability to improve same store sales; our ability to maintain or improve our operating margins; our ability to compete effectively with other retailers; our ability to maintain price competitiveness; our ability to achieve the anticipated benefits of our centralized production facility; the geographic concentration of our stores; our history of net losses; ordering errors or product supply disruptions in the delivery of perishable products; restrictions on our use of the Fairway name other than on the East Coast and in California and certain parts of Michigan and Ohio; our ability to retain and attract senior management, key employees and qualified store-level employees; rising costs of providing employee benefits, including increased healthcare costs and pension contributions due to unfunded pension liabilities; our ability to satisfy our ongoing capital needs and unanticipated cash requirements; and other risk factors detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including our Annual Report or Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 30, 2014, and available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. You are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements herein and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date of this press release and the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
Source: Fairway Market
