Each year, Food City’s School Bucks program provides much-needed educational tools and equipment to participating schools throughout the supermarket retailer’s market area.
Food City has pledged $800,000 in contributions for the upcoming school year. With Food City’s School Bucks Challenge, it’s easy to earn reward points. For every $1 you spend, using your Food City ValuCard, you’ll receive 1 point.
“Our Food City School Bucks Program has provided much-needed support for schools across our market area. Our School Bucks Challenge makes points collection quick and easy,” says Steven C. Smith, Food City president and chief executive officer.
The 2024-2025 School Bucks Challenge begins September 4, 2024 and continues through May 6, 2025. To ensure your points credit to the school of your choice, simply go online to foodcity.com/schoolbucks to link your Food City ValuCard to your preferred school.
Food City has pledged $800,000 for the upcoming school year. School allocations are based upon the percentage of customer purchases assigned to each school. Schools can monitor their progress biannually online at foodcity.com.
“Food City is committed to supporting the education of our youth,” said Smith. “Since the program’s inception, we’ve awarded over $22,900,000 in much-needed educational equipment and tools to more than a thousand participating area schools”.
Food City strives to offer support for kids at school and home. Recent studies have demonstrated that food choices affect students’ cognitive skills, behavior, and mental and physical health, impacting academic performance. Food City recognizes that between school, work, and everyday happenings, planning and executing nutritious meals can seem like a daunting task. By offering simple meal and snack solutions in-store, Food City supports offering optimal nutrition to children at home.
Most kids are not consuming enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains and dairy, which means missing essential nutrients. To close the nutrition gap, parents should aim to offer balanced meals and snacks at home by incorporating a variety of foods from different food groups. Incorporating nutrient-dense foods into kid-friendly favorite meals is one way to encourage greater fruit and vegetable intake.
- Try adding frozen butternut squash to macaroni and cheese, grated carrots to tacos and blend zucchini into pasta sauce.
- Adding produce to recipes that children can help prepare promotes self-efficacy and a higher intake of produce.
- Try individual rainbow pizzas made with whole-grain English muffins, reduced-fat mozzarella, pizza sauce and a variety of colorful vegetables for topping.
- For snack time, try kid-approved options like homemade trail mix, including almonds, grapes and cubed cheese, fresh fruit paired with cheese and whole grain crackers or mini hummus cups and veggie dippers.
Explore these meal and shopping solutions to take away some of the school-year stress.
Make it easy to offer more fruits and vegetables with Food City Shortcuts
Food City’s produce department saves prep time with Shortcuts - offering cleaned, cut and ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables to save time in the kitchen. Shortcuts will change seasonally to offer choices in peak nutrition and quality. From soup starters to grill-ready sides, offering more fruit and vegetables at snacks and mealtimes is easy.
Another easy solution for packed lunches and snack time is using fruit and vegetable trays. These offer a variety of colorful, nutrient-rich options that can make planning on the go easier.
Prioritize convenience with ready-to-heat meals
On busy weeknights, it is easy to resort to quick options. To avoid the drive-thru route, try Food City Shortcuts ready to heat and eat meals. Built for two or family size, these inspired recipes are made fresh in-store daily from the finest ingredients, including offerings like smoky mountain chicken, chicken enchiladas and penne alfredo. Packaged in oven and microwave-safe containers, these convenient and tasty meal solutions make it easy to serve up the flavor of a homemade meal without cooking or cleaning up.
Help with label reading
Shelf-stable and packaged items are a core part of most pantries. The key to making these foods fit in a balanced diet is understanding the right amounts of saturated fat, sodium, fiber, added sugars and essential nutrients to look for when shopping. This can feel like an overwhelming task when faced with a store filled with options. Food City’s Pick Well shelf tag program is designed to make smart eating decisions easier. These color-coded tags can be found in-store and online to highlight “better for you” choices like heart-healthy, whole grains, no sugar added and low sodium—another way to save time and improve diet quality.
Get out of the recipe rut
Need inspiration for transforming ingredients that are staples in your pantry into nutritious meals that the whole family will love? Look online and in the weekly ad for Dish in a Dash recipes. These meal solutions are intended to help when crunched for time and looking for big flavor. By pairing your favorite pantry items with fresh ingredients, you can power up your weeknight meal in minutes.
Save with meal deals
Wondering what to serve up as you wind into the weekend? Save time with Food City’s Meal Deals. Look in the weekly ad and online for meal deals that bundle all you need for a flavor-packed classic. Offerings include fajitas, gourmet burgers and salmon.
Save time with Curbside & Delivery
Simply go to foodcity.com to start shopping for thousands of available items. GoCart curbside pick-up allows customers to shop online and select a pick-up time. A professional shopper shops the order, selecting items based on preferences. The order will be ready and loaded at pick-up time, giving more time to focus on family.