Having no facility to house such a program, the Montana Food Bank Network, together with the State Department of Public Health and Human Services, approached Montana's Governor Marc Racicot with the idea of setting up a canning facility at Montana State Prison to can food for the hungry.  Governor Racicot, immediately recognizing the benefit of such a program for both needy people and as a vocational training program for inmates, got behind the project and put money into his FY200-2001 Budget for startup funds and minimal operating funds for the Cannery.

With support from the State Department of Public Health and Human Services, the Montana Food Bank Network successfully defended the monies proposed by Governor Racicot before the Montana State Legislature.  Many legislators, from both sides of the isle, saw the need and the benefit of such a program and the funds were allocated to start the MFBN/MCE Cannery.  The program produced approximately 240,000 cans of nutritional food in its first year of operation.

While this bill provided much-needed protein items for the food banks, many smaller food banks do not have the funding and/or processing facilities to process this meat.  The meat processing facility at the Cannery will take game meat donated through the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks program and package and freeze this meat for distribution to the food banks.  The Cannery will process wild game meat only for those agencies specifically requesting this service.

Many of the larger food banks in more populous areas of the state are able to get their donated wild game meat processed on their own.  However, sometimes these agencies receive more game than they can feasibly process.  For these agencies, as well as those who do not have the resources to process their own meat, the Cannery will process this meat and either return it to the area from whence it came, or if that area designates, it will be sent to other areas of the state in need.