BUILDING A BETTER MODEL

Year To Date Numbers

Meals Served 1,237,398

Rescued Food 402,934 lbs (201 tons)

Volunteer Hours 2320

Every major metropolitan community in America has 3 things in common as it pertains to our work. Yes, hunger, food waste and poverty can be found in every county in our great country. It is our belief that there is a very symbiotic relationship between them all.

We’ve all heard the analogy; Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day but if you teach him to fish and you’ve fed him for a lifetime. Well, we believe very strongly in that and that’s why we’re working so very hard to reimagine and relaunch our culinary training program.

You see, it’s just common sense to us that we use the success of our rescued food program to provide the necessary food items for our culinary training program. And unlike most culinary schools out there it also makes sense that we use the food from our culinary classrooms to feed our friends and neighbors in need. It all just works together.

Going from appx 8,000 meals a week to 8,000 meals a day was inconceivable in March of last year but then our life turned upside down and we had to respond. Over the past 18 months covid has helped get us where we wanted to be, just at a much faster pace. While we have settled in at an average of 7,600 meals a day, we know the need is still great and we’re working hard to find ways to produce even more meals. We also know we have lots of capacity for growth, even if it’s just adding a second shift of employees to prep and produce product.

What we’ve come to realize in the past year is that our model works both conceptually and operationally and we’re now working very hard to perfect our processes. As we streamline some of our operation’s we are truly building a better model. This is all happening, mind you, in a building that was designed to make and produce egg rolls.

So, as we look at and consider the empty building next door to us, we have a clear eye on our model. Is now the time for expansion and growth? Will the added space help us work more efficiently? And beyond convenience, will our programs truly benefit from such a move? Our goal is to perfect our systems to not only bring more tasty and nutritious meals to our friends and neighbors in Southern California but the entire country.

Because we know that hunger, poverty and food waste exist all across America it is our goal that a program like ours is there to help. There doesn’t have to be a Bracken’s Kitchen in every community but there should be a Bracken’s Kitchen type model that can combat food waste, hunger and poverty in a symbiotic way to make a better America. We believe that there will come a day when every food bank in America has their own or is associated with a rescued food kitchen.

Unlike hunger in so many parts of the world, America doesn’t have a food shortage problem we have a food waste problem.

We hope you’ll agree that nobody should go to bed hungry in America and certainly not while we are discarding and wasting up to 40% of our food supply.

With your help we know that we can indeed cut down on the massive amounts of food waste, use it to feed more people and train people for a path outside of poverty all at the same time.

Thank you

BB