Sodexo Canada's Feeding Our Future® Program to Provide 135,000 Nutritious Meals to Children Across Canada this Summer

BURLINGTON, ON, June 27, 2012 /CNW/ - As school across Canada close for the summer, Sodexo's Feeding Our Future® program, in partnership with Sodexo client accounts, vendors and hunger relief organizations, will help bridge the gap for many children who would otherwise not receive healthy lunches during the summer months by preparing and serving approximately 135,000 lunches in nine cities across Canada.

Since Feeding Our Future's inception in 2001, Sodexo has provided more than 750,000 free summer lunches to hungry children in Canada.

"Feeding Our Future is more than a feeding program, it's a commitment to provide an opportunity for the youth of our country to lead healthy productive lives, through proper nutrition," said Tracey Durand, Executive Director of the Sodexo Foundation in Canada. "However, it remains a challenge because even with the existing summer food service programs, thousands of children who rely on school breakfast and lunch programs risk hunger or malnutrition once the school year ends."

Feeding Our Future will provide approximately 135,000 lunches during July and August in nine cities: Vancouver, Regina, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Oakville and Halifax.

The Feeding Our Future program is funded by the Sodexo Foundation, the anti-hunger charitable arm of Sodexo, Inc. Sodexo employees work closely with local hunger relief organizations who distribute the meals to children through identified community camps and summer outreach programs. This resourceful program donates the food and labour necessary to provide summer lunches to children who would otherwise go hungry.

More than 5.5 million people, most of them children, are at risk of hunger on a daily basis in Canada. The Sodexo Foundation supports innovative programs to help children and families who are at risk of hunger. To make a contribution to the fight against hunger or for more information, please visit www.sodexofoundation.org.

About Sodexo

Sodexo in Canada
Sodexo Canada has been delivering On-Site Service Solutions to clients in the Healthcare, Education, Business & Industry, and Remote Sites sectors for over 40 years. Today, Sodexo Canada provides services at nearly 750 locations for more than 230 clients across Canada. The company's 10,000 employees work together to improve the Quality of Life for their customers by designing, managing, and delivering a wide range of On-Site Service Solutions -- from project management to energy planning, from technical building maintenance to concierge services, from housekeeping to fitness centre management, and from catering and foodservices to clinical technology management. Sodexo Canada is proud to have created the Sodexo Foundation, an independent charitable organization that has donated more than 750,000 meals to at risk youth in Canada since it was founded in 2001. Follow us on Twitter @SodexoCanada

Sodexo, world leader in Quality of Daily Life Services
Quality of Life plays an important role in the progress of individuals and the performance of organizations. Based on this conviction, Sodexo acts as the partner of companies and institutions that place a premium on performance and employee well being, as it has since Pierre Bellon founded the company in 1966. Sharing the same passion for service, Sodexo's 413,000 employees in 80 countries design, manage and deliver an unrivaled array of Quality of Life services. Sodexo has created a new form of service business that contributes to the fulfillment of its employees and the economic, social and environmental development of the communities, regions and countries in which it operates.

Key figures (as of August 31, 2011)

Sodexo world-wide
16 billion euro consolidated revenue
413,000 employees (incl. acquisitions made between August 31 & December 31, 2011)
22^nd largest employer worldwide (ranking as of August 31, 2011)
80 countries
33,400 sites
50 million consumers served daily
9.2 billion euro market capitalization (as of March 8, 2012)