Swiss watch manufacturer Ernst Benz has partnered with celebrity chef and restaurateur Mario Batali to create a limited edition of timepieces to benefit the Food Bank For New York City, which provides food for more than a quarter million meals each day.

The Mario Batali Limited Edition Ernst Benz Great Circle Automatic is an enhanced version of the original watch’s design, and features accents in Batali’s signature color of orange. The new collection, said the chef, “brings art and public service together.”

Mario Batali personally collaborated with Leonid Khankin, the brand’s managing director and chief creative officer, on the collection. Citing his “love to celebrate life with simple things of the highest quality,” Batali said the new watch does “exactly that,” and that the opportunity to help the Food Bank is “a joyous part of my celebration,”

This special series of timepieces will come in three Great Circle sizes—36mm, 40mm and 47mm—each limited and numbered to 250. Batali and Khankin were scheduled to launch the collection at the “Food & Wine Classic” in Aspen, Col., on June 15.

The Food Bank For New York City is the city’s only food bank and the major supplier of food to more than 1,000 of its boroughs’ emergency and community food programs. It helps provide food for approximately 250,000 free meals served daily to women and children, the elderly, people with disabilities and the working poor.

JCK