Family Meals Month is officially celebrated in September. A month-long campaign that encourages families to come together at least once a week to share a meal. The “holiday” first began as a movement to bring families together to enjoy a meal at least one time a month. Studies have shown frequent family meals lead to better nutrition and family dynamics.
Since it began in 2015, Family Meals Month has championed the importance of family meals, and the benefits of families having meals together have been supported by thousands of studies. PFMA realizes that the reality of family meals may be a struggle with busy schedules, time constraints, and other commitments. Many of our members are participating in Family Meals Month, and we wanted to share with you a few ways they are getting involved this year!
Wakefern Food Corp., the largest retailer-owned cooperative in the United States, is getting involved in Family Meals Month by asking their customers to make the commitment of one more family meal a week. Even the simple addition of one meal a week has been shown to help kids grow into more respectful adults. Wakefern Food Corp. shares that family meals are linked to higher grades, and lower risk of obesity for both adults and children who have regular family meals. In short, the benefits go far beyond physical health, but their emotional and mental health, too.
In order to help their customers prepare one more meal at home each week, Wakefern Food Corp. has a Family Meals Month recipe book that they sent to all of their stores. This recipe book is also available as a digital PDF. Every week during September, they coordinated 3 sale items to align as a “meal deal” and could be used in a recipe that was featured in the recipe book.
Wakefern Food Corp. didn’t just stop at their cookbook and sale items; and they had a coordinated social media effort every week where they showed ways to use the weekly themes of taco night, pasta night, comfort food, and sheet pan suppers to create customizable meals. They also focused on three health attributes: diabetic-friendly, plant-goodness, and simple ingredients which shoppers can visit and shop by from their sr.com/welleveryday page.
A month-long campaign like Family Meals Month gives our members a great opportunity to collaborate. Wakefern Food Corp. was excited to collaborate with Homemade, an online cooking school where they hosted virtual cooking classes offered for free to their customers. They made potato chorizo tacos and coffee margaritas featuring Kraft products.
We hope everyone had a great September and got involved with Family Meals Month!
