Paula Deen, Ingles and Smithfield deliver a truckload of meat to MANNA FoodBank

This morning, Ingles Markets, Smithfield and Food Network’s Paula Deen delivered meat — and lots of it — to MANNA FoodBank. How much meat? 80 thousand servings of protein, to be exact.

Smithfield’s donation is part of the company’s Helping Hungry Homes initiative, a program that’s helping to stock over-taxed food banks.

“These difficult times require the continued support of our food industry partners. Because of this relationship with Ingles Markets and Smithfield, we will be able to provide our neighbors in need with healthy servings of hope. We can’t thank them enough for this wonderful donation of protein and for bringing Paula Deen to Asheville to help demonstrate how everyone can be a part of the solution to hunger in WNC,” said Kitty Schaller, Executive Director of MANNA FoodBank.

Why is Paula Deen in Asheville? She’s attending the grand opening of 404-seat Paula Deen’s Kitchen at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino on Saturday, Jan. 22nd. Says Paula Dee of the deal, “I couldn’t think of a better mix: Southern food and casinos. It has all the ingredients for a good time.”

Xpress was there to capture some images of the event. Photos by Jonathan Welch.

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30 thoughts on “Paula Deen, Ingles and Smithfield deliver a truckload of meat to MANNA FoodBank

  1. Jeff

    I’ve managed to navigate life blissfully unaware of Paula Deen.. Nice photo. Is that also her in the Mardi Gras photo in pink feathers, on the left?

  2. So, you know, instead of initiatives to lower the price and raise the standards of food, let’s just stock up food banks with hams. Because, you know, poor people will eat hams. Lots of hams.

    Because that way, we can look like we give a damn while continuing to keep poor people fat, unhealthy, and (most importantly) poor and willing to work for nothing.

    Yay, corporate altruism!

  3. Protein averse or vegan-vangelist type folks, might want to avoid Harrah’s new Paula Deen restaurant. She does not spare the butter, hog fat or gravy.

  4. Doug Sahm

    What company donated those hams? The pictures don’t make that real clear to me.
    By the way, Paula looks like she is ready to be taken out of the oven now.

  5. travelah

    Some of you people would pee on your own parade. I suspect there are a lot of households who appreciate the ham.

  6. bill smith

    “I suspect there are a lot of households who appreciate the ham. ”

    Indeed. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.

  7. bill smith

    Is it actually charity if the companies doing the donating are just doing it for the tax write-off? Wouldn’t that make it more of a donation by the taxpayers? And if everyone involved is doing it do get lots of free publicity?

  8. I don’t know who this is.”

    Paula Deen is the Queen southern cooking on Food Network. She first got attention by being mentioned in the book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” At the time she was mostly delivering box or bag lunches to downtown workers in Savannah. She’s got quite the rags to riches story. She needs to lay off the spray on tan.

    http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS239&q=paula+deen+rags+to+riches&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq;=

  9. The Trolls Troll

    “Some of you people would pee on your own parade. I suspect there are a lot of households who appreciate the ham.”

    I agree. Sometimes I really hate Asheville and its self-righteousness.

  10. bobaloo

    Because ham is from the devil?

    Jesus people, a food donation is a food donation. Quit pissing all over a charitable act, whether or not it’s corporate sponsored. Bitch and moan about food standards all you want, but this is the very thing people wish corporations were doing more often.

    And pork is f***ing AWESOME.

  11. Porkfat rules! I do prefer it without the nitrate preservatives, though.

    Bobaloo, where ya been? Haven’t read any comments from you for a while.

  12. The Trolls Troll

    People are mad because it’s Smithfield. Do you honestly think a person who has no means to buy food gives a damn where it comes from? I know I wouldn’t, and I hope I’m never faced with having to rely on charity to feed myself or my family.

  13. hauntedheadnc

    I’m totally with you, Mat. I think people should not only starve, but should also let their children starve, for their principles.

    And just to make sure we have the hipster element covered too, I’ll say that I was into eating before it was mainstream.

  14. Jeff

    Mat ~ That food in your link looks yummy… But YOW!! $99 hams?! $27 biscuits?! I had no idea such pricing crimes existed.

  15. bill smith

    How nice of the taxpayers to subsidize some free advertising for Ingles and the Food Network. I’ve got some old sandwiches in my fridge, can I donate those and get an article, too?

  16. I would like some of you people who apparently have advanced degrees in English to spell out where I have said that the poor or hungry should starve.

    I haven’t.

    What I am saying, and hopefully I can be very clear this time, is that this sort of “charitable giving” in full view of the cameras of the press and with the cheering and acclimation of the public is nothing short of a cynical PR scam. It allows corporations and the middle class to say “Well, we’ve done a good thing” without actually having to do anything to address the long-term issues of poverty and lack of proper food and nutrition for the poor and working class.

    But, apparently, some of you take issue with someone who is here to stick a pin in the balloon of your shallow, middle class liberal piety. I’m sorry.

    Donating food like this, like driving a Prius or only going to church on Easter or Christmas and claiming to be a Christian – or only voting in November and claiming that you are “politically astute” – it’s all just a feel-good coverup for the fact that each and every one of us, every single day, is doing absolutely zilch to address the larger issues of income disparity, wealth distribution, and the way that food is produced and marketed in this country.

    Do these food banks serve a need? Yes, absolutely they do and they should accept these gifts and do with them as they should.

    Should we treat this band-aid as capable of treating a chest wound? No.

  17. when biscuits reach $27.00 for a dozen, it’s time to make your own. It’s easy. And cost about $2.00 max, for a couple of dozen made from scratch.

  18. Betty Cloer Wallace

    I agree with you, Mat Cat, but at least they got a lot of yummy hams!

    The absolute worst of such free advertising, though, is foisted upon school teachers and the public through those degrading $100 checks handed out to “teachers-of-the-year” by Wachovia and Wal-Mart so they can print up a giant-size “check” for the teacher “to spend on supplies for her class” and get a photo of the teacher and the bank’s “city executive” or the Wal-Mart “store manager” on the front page of the local newspaper–newspapers that don’t want to spend money on staff to get real news that week.

    And the Christmas “shop with a cop” stuff for “needy children” is just as obscene–the sheriff getting free campaign publicity for the next election by having the cameras follow him around with the “needy children” whose faces are, of course, legally obscured in the photographs.

    Also, ditto for the “fill the school bus with supplies” promotions that Wal-Mart does each August by having a school bus parked right outside the front door of the Wal-Mart.

    And there are numerous other free-advertising obscenities that fall into this same vein.

    But a free ham? Yeah, I’d take it if offered. Not being an absolute purist, I wouldn’t be able to resist.

    Actually, a ham is simply a more plentiful advertising enticement than those little food samples that lots of food companies give away, which I always take.

    Who knows, though, how many companies give to charities anonymously? They should be appreciated for that.

  19. travelah

    Did they run out of hams before Matt could get one or was he just in the dark about it?

  20. dpewen

    I have no idea who Paula Deen is … and after seeing the pictures I really don’t care to.
    Giving away the hams is a nice idea and Smithfield gets kudos for that … not sure why people are fussing about it … perhaps Matt and other should be giving Manna food and money.
    Come on people put up or shut up!!

  21. Betty Cloer Wallace

    I have no idea who Paula Deen is …..

    Oprah’s long lost half-sister!

  22. luther blissett

    And somewhere in NC, a lake of pig manure grows a bit bigger because of those hams.

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