Sioux Honey, Giant Eagle Donate Nearly 5,000 Pounds of Honey to Help Pittsburgh Families Facing Food Insecurity

National Honeybee Day donation will provide 9,720 bottles of SUE BEE® Clover Honey to 412 Food Rescue for distribution across the Pittsburgh region

Sioux Honey Co-op, the only beekeeper-owned honey cooperative in the United States and the maker of SUE BEE® and AUNT SUE’S®, partnered with Giant Eagle to donate 4,860 pounds of SUE BEE® Clover Honey to 412 Food Rescue today, providing 9,720 bottles for distribution to Pittsburgh-area families facing food insecurity.

The donation, delivered to 412 Food Rescue’s Millvale Food & Energy Hub, comes one day ahead of National Honeybee Day, and is part of Sioux Honey Co-op’s ongoing Sharing Sweetness initiative, which brings together the co-op’s beekeeper families and community partners to help get American-made honey into the hands of people who need it.

Honey can be especially valuable in hunger-relief programs because it is shelf-stable, requires no refrigeration, and can be used across meals from breakfasts and beverages to cooking, baking, and marinades.

“Honey is something our beekeeper families work year-round to produce, so being able to share that work with families who need it most is very meaningful to us,” said Aimee Sandman, Director of Growth and Community Impact at Sioux Honey Co-op.  “Our Sharing Sweetness initiative reflects the cooperative spirit that has always been at the heart of Sioux Honey, bringing our beekeepers together with partners like Giant Eagle and 412 Food Rescue to help make a meaningful impact in the communities we serve.”

“This is certainly the most honey we’ve ever received at one time, and we won’t have any problem putting it to work,” said Alyssa Cholodofsky, Chief Executive Officer at 412 Food Rescue. “Honey is one of those pantry items people love and can use in so many ways. A donation this size gives us an opportunity to reach a significant number of families through our community network.”

The effort also builds on Giant Eagle’s longstanding commitment to addressing hunger and food access in the Pittsburgh region. The retailer helped bring Sioux Honey and 412 Food Rescue together for the donation, adding to broader hunger-relief efforts that include approximately 1.8 million pounds of food donated annually through its warehouse and manufacturing network, weekly Mobile Market service to 12 Pittsburgh-area communities facing food-access challenges, and the equivalent of more than 101 million meals provided through a recently completed four-year initiative.

“Giant Eagle has called Pittsburgh home for 95 years, and throughout that time, we have been fortunate to work with strong local partners to help address food insecurity in our region,” said Dan Donovan, Giant Eagle spokesperson. “We are pleased to have connected Sioux Honey with our long-time partner, 412 Food Rescue, to help this meaningful donation make an impact for families across our community.”

The scale of the donation reflects the work behind every bottle. An estimated 3.7 million honeybees are needed to produce nearly 2.5 tons of honey. Stacked end-to-end, the 9,720 four-inch bottles donated today would reach approximately 3,240 feet, nearly four times the height of Pittsburgh’s 841-foot U.S. Steel Tower.

For Sioux Honey, the effort reflects a cooperative model rooted in shared resources and shared purpose for more than a century. Today, the co-op represents more than 180 beekeeper families across the United States, including many multigenerational operations, whose members collectively produce approximately 35 million pounds of honey in a typical year. For perspective, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported 116 million pounds produced nationwide in 2025, meaning Sioux Honey members account for roughly 30% of the country’s domestically produced honey each year.

SUE BEE® and AUNT SUE’S® were also the first honey brands to earn U.S. Farmed™ certification from American Farmland Trust, a standard recognizing qualifying consumer products made with at least 95% U.S.-grown ingredients. Before today’s Pittsburgh donation, Sioux Honey’s beekeeper families had contributed more than 100,000 pounds of honey through large-scale Sharing Sweetness efforts over the previous two years.