A brief introduction to meal packing events

Nathan Keegan, Feed The Hungry’s Head of Warehousing and Logistics, shares the basics of food packing events.

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Nathan, and I head up Warehousing and Logistics. Essentially, that’s transporting and storing the food and resources that come to Feed The Hungry, and then getting it out to where it needs to go. I’ve been doing this for about a year and a half now.

We’ve got a small team of staff and an amazing team of volunteers who help make this all happen.

Super. So, what is food packing?

It’s quite simple really. The food that we give out to the children we serve around the world, most of the time, is a recipe that provides someone with most of the carbs, proteins and vitamins that they need to survive for an extended period of time. It’s a mix of rice, lentils, soya, vitamins and minerals, measured out into specific quantities.

This recipe mix is put into bags, which are then weighed, sealed and packed into boxes, ready to be shipped out to wherever they’re needed.

Cool. Who does this?

100% volunteers. We work with churches, schools, uniformed organisations and businesses; the people connected to these groups volunteer their time to work in teams to pack up the food.

This is usually done in shifts, and typically 5,000 to 30,000 meals are packed in one go. Obviously, the more meals that are aimed to be packed, the more volunteers are needed, or the longer the time it’ll take to pack the target number of meals.

We provide the equipment, ingredients and the expertise to make the events happen.

Why not get a machine to do it?

I’ve been asked this question a number of times by people taking part in food packing events. The question I ask back is, “Are you enjoying yourself packing these meals?”, to which they invariably say, “Yes!” I say, “A machine would not get the same pleasure doing this job that you’re experiencing right now.”

And people who do food packing do genuinely love it – we’ve had children as young as four years old taking part, right up to people in their 90s. Anyone can get involved.

Isn’t packing food in one country and sending it to another a waste of time and resource? Couldn’t this be done locally?

That’s making the assumption that there is food available locally.

We’re sending food to a lot of countries where there simply isn’t basic food available, or it’s prohibitively expensive for those on a low income. Climate Change is making it increasingly difficult to grow crops in southern-Africa.

In early-2025, it’s estimated that 6 million people in Zimbabwe – over a third of the population – will be food-insecure.

We’re working to set up local community farming projects in places like Zimbabwe and Zambia, so that food can increasingly be grown in-country, but that’s not a simple or quick solution. For someone who is starving today, rice meals packed by someone in the UK and being sent overseas is an absolute Godsend.

What does it cost?

As a volunteer taking part, it doesn’t cost anything.

However, there is obviously a cost for the ingredients, the bags, boxes and actually getting the food to where it needs to go.

We know that the money can be a barrier for some organisations wanting to take part, so we intentionally try to keep costs as low as possible.

How do I get involved?

If you’re a church, business or organisation that wants to run a food packing event, please get in touch with us using our online form. Our team will contact you and will work with you to see how a food packing event could be run in your context.

We have a lot of groups that we work with who keep coming back to run second, third & fourth events with us, often wanting to do more meals each time. If you’re curious about how it might work in your church or business, get in touch and let’s have a chat.

We’re so grateful to everyone who runs or takes part in meal packing. The difference that these meals make to those receiving them is immense – for a child who has nothing to eat, this food is world changing.