St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Coborn’s Inc. has wrapped its 2026 Produce for Kids campaign across its Coborn’s, Cash Wise and
Marketplace Foods stores. The campaign will provide a $6,000 donation to local Boys & Girls Clubs, bringing the program’s total to $25,000 since 2021.
The summer campaign runs in partnership with Healthy Family Project and a group of food and produce brands. This year it included a cooking session for youth at the Eastside Boys & Girls Club in St. Cloud, where club members followed along with Coborn’s registered dietitian Macey Brickweg in her summer Kids Cook at Home online class and prepared a recipe using ingredients from campaign partners.
“There’s something special about watching kids get hands-on in the kitchen and seeing their excitement as they make a recipe themselves,” said Tracy Shaw, partnership manager at Healthy Family Project, who joined the group onsite. “Being at the Boys & Girls Club brought the campaign to life and showed exactly what these partnerships can do, connect kids with fresh foods in a fun, memorable way while supporting an organization making a difference in their community.”
The onsite session complemented the campaign’s annual Kids Cook at Home virtual class, also hosted by Brickweg, which invited families across the region to cook along using seasonal ingredients from campaign partners.
“Our goal is to make healthy choices feel approachable for families, and this campaign gives us so many ways to do that,” said Brickweg. “From discovering fresh ingredients and shoppable recipes in our stores to cooking alongside us at home, we’re helping families build confidence in the kitchen while supporting the communities we serve.”
In stores, Produce for Kids signage carried QR codes linking shoppers to campaign pages with dietitian-approved recipes, partner products and campaign information. Featured recipes were shoppable online.
Campaign partners this year were Fresh Express, Kid’s Choice Watermelon, National Pork Board, RealSweet Vidalia Onions, SAMSONS Grapes, Tasteful Selections and ¡Yo Quiero! Brands.
Healthy Family Project is a cause marketing organization created in 2002 by Shuman Farms. It has raised more than $8 million to benefit children and families and provided more than 25 million meals through Feeding America.
Coborn’s is a 105-year-old employee-owned retailer with almost 10,000 employees and 78 grocery stores in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois under the Coborn’s, Cash Wise Foods, Marketplace Foods, Hornbacher’s, Kessler’s Food and Grocery and Sullivan’s Foods banners. The company also operates fuel, liquor, coffee, hardware and pharmacy locations. To support more than 135 retail business units, it runs its own central bakery, dry cleaning facility and grocery distribution center.