Nutrien matches $500K fundraising effort to benefit Sask. food banks

Newly-formed Nutrien will follow in the charitable footsteps of well-known corporate donor PotashCorp, according to Nutrien president and CEO Chuck Magro.

Nutrien is the product of a merger between Saskatoon-based PotashCorpand Calgary-based Agrium.

Magroattended a press conference at the Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning Centre Thursday afternoon to highlight Nutrien'sdonations to food banks across Saskatchewan.

"Nutrienhas played an enormous role in strengthening capacity, stabilizing infrastructure, and ensuring food banks in small towns and urban centres across our province can continue providing emergency food to those who need it most," said Food Banks of Saskatchewan executive director Laurie O'Connor.

Nutriengave the provincial organization $500,000 by over the holidays as part of the annual "matching campaign," where Nutrienmatches the first half-million dollars raised.

According to O'Connor, the donation will go toward infrastructure like better shelving and refrigerating trucks, programming like cooking classes and community gardens, and higher quality food.

Another grant from the G. Murray and Edna Forbes Foundation Fund for $43,750 was matched through the food banks' holiday campaign with Nutrien, and went directly toward a supply-chain effort to warehouse, sortand pack food to be sent out across Saskatchewan.

PotashCorp was noted for spending one per cent of its earnings on charity, but there is no such goal for Nutrien yet.

"Those things will need to be worked out at the board level," said Magro

"We don't need a target or a specific number to be a responsible citizen in the community."