Lawless Jerky, Food Lion to Fight Hunger in the Carolinas

Nearly fifteen years ago, Lawless Jerky’s Founder and CEO Matt Tolnick began crafting beef jerky by hand in his Duke dorm room, using ingredients found at his local Durham Food Lion store. Many of the friends that chipped in for Tolnick’s first dehydrator, or served as eager taste testers, are now Lawless Jerky employees and/or investors.

Lawless Jerky’s donation coincides with its retail debut in Food Lion, the grocery chain headquartered in Salisbury, N.C.

“North Carolina is special to the Lawless Jerky family. We had the humbling opportunity to spend four years at Duke, making lasting memories and friendships along the way. Our ventures off campus extended to Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Asheville, Wilmington and beyond. From intimate experiences with crime in downtown Durham to sobering realities of rural poverty, it was clear that much work remained,” Tolnick said of his inspiration for the donation.  

Lawless Jerky chose Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina (“SHFBM”) for its broad impact, reaching over 650 local agencies across 19 counties in North and South Carolina.

“We truly appreciate Lawless Jerky’s donation of a tasty, healthy, shelf-stable, portable and high-protein, high-nutrition snack that will provide our beneficiaries with a strong nutritional profile,” Kay Carter, SHFBM’s CEO, said in highlighting the significance of the gift.

Lawless Jerky will create care packages anchored by its beef jerky alongside fellow Duke alumni based in the Charlotte area. In total, they will distribute over 550,000 grams of high-quality protein, enough to satisfy the full recommended daily allowance for about 11,000 hungry North and South Carolinians.

“Of course, Duke likes to see its graduates find success in their professional fields, but we take greater pride in seeing them use that success to improve their communities,” reflected Chris O’Neill, Senior Director of Regional Engagement for the Duke Alumni Association.

Food Lion, through its Food Lion Feeds initiative to help end hunger, donated the equivalent of nearly 7,000 meals as part of the event.

“Food Lion is committed to helping to end hunger in the communities we serve and has pledged to donate 500 million meals by 2020. Through strong partnerships like this one with Lawless Jerky, we are well on our way towards meeting this goal. We appreciate Lawless Jerky's commitment to address food insecurity in the Charlotte area and welcome them back to their roots in North Carolina,” explained Allen Frost, a Food Lion Director of Operations in the Charlotte area.

Team volunteering to support this donation took place on Tuesday, July 12, from 10am to 12pm, at Second Harvest’s warehouse located at 500 Spratt St. in Charlotte.