The city of Austin claimed its third consecutive City-County Food Drive title Tuesday.

Each November, city of Austin and Mower County employees are challenged to donate non-perishable food items to help feed the hungry in Mower County.

When skid-loads of boxed and canned food items were loaded on to the scale at the Mower County Recycling Center Tuesday afternoon, the city emerged the victor by a slim per-employee average.

Trish Wiechmann, city human resource director, and Jeff Weaver, Mower County recycling coordinator, coordinate the food drive competition.

Daryl Gullickson, building maintenance worker, assisted in weighing the donated food items.

City employees donated 824 pounds of food. Mower County employees donated 1,132 pounds.

That’s 1,956 pounds of food from both the city and the county.

Each city employee donated an average of 5.53 pounds of food.

Each Mower County employee donated an average of 5.41 pounds of food.

Mower County has more employees than the city of Austin.

Through the last 16-years of the food drive, a total of 29,412 pounds of food has been donated to the Salvation Army Austin Corps emergency food pantry.

That’s almost 15 tons of food for the hungry in Mower County.

“Another landslide by the city,” joked Austin Mayor Tom Stiehm. “As long as we don’t have to have a recount, it’s great to see city employees respond this way.”

Weaver will be designated to present the official food drive plaque to Mayor Stiehm at a December Austin City Council meeting.

This year, the Salvation Army Austin Corps has announced it is receiving its biggest demand for food and other assistance at year’s end.