News for Meal Production

Will Farrell: Leading Up Baking at DCCK

Will Farrell is one of DC Central Kitchen’s friendliest faces. A graduate of DC Central Kitchen’s Culinary Job Training Program, Will now works for DCCK as a culinary lead. He’s been doing great things leading meal production and working with volunteers. Now he’s using his knowledge to expand DCCK’s baking capacities.

While incarcerated, Will became a certified baker through the Department of Labor, and through this program, he realized how much he enjoyed baking and how good he was at it.

As a vegetarian, baking also suits him better than cooking. He hopes to use the hours of baking instruction he received in jail toward a degree in baking and the pastry arts.

For now, Will is using his baking knowledge to bake quick breads for healthy snacks in DC Public Schools. He has also been preparing biscuits and muffins for DCCK’s catering branch, and hopes to soon provide even more offerings. He has been sharing his knowledge about baking with other DCCK chefs, and we have been expanding our baking equipment in the kitchen with recent purchases including a mixer and baking pans. Will is certainly helping us up the ante of our baking in the Kitchen, and we look forward to seeing what else he has in store for us!

How We’re Engaging Local Businesses

We’ve partnered with 30 corner stores to deliver fresh fruits and veggies to DC neighborhoods without fully stocked grocery stores.

We couldn’t do our work without our growing list of business partnerships. Here’s a recap of their amazing contributions.

Local Restaurants
Restaurants have always been an integral part of what we do. It all started in 1989 when our founder, Robert Egger, started recovering food from local restaurants, hotels, and catering operations to be used in meals to feed hungry district residents. Since then, restaurants have given us much more than leftovers. From participating in our events to providing internships and job opportunities for our culinary students, restaurants are the bread and butter of what makes DC Central Kitchen work.

Local Farmers
When we do have to buy food, we’re committed to buying local. In 2012, we invested $156,523 into our area economy by purchasing produce and meat from area farmers. We increased the total poundage of locally sourced food in our meals by 22% from 2011. Last year, 30% of all of the ingredients used in our school meals were locally sourced.

DC Corner Stores
We’re combating poor health and creating opportunities for small businesses through Healthy Corners, our wholesale delivery service that provides fresh fruits and veggies to communities without fully stocked supermarkets. In 2012, our 30 partner corner stores sold $33,000 worth of fresh produce.

Food Distributors
In 2012, our Nutrition Lab facility in Northeast DC facilitated the recovery of 320,000 pounds of fresh produce from local food distributors. These are good fruits and veggies that are fresh and healthy, but are not perfect enough for sale. Our relationships with these distributors have led them to increase their donations over the years, allowing us to make our donations go further.

Workplaces
Last year, we received over $432,949 dollars in workplace giving campaign contributions from employees working at local businesses and government agencies based in the region. We’re proud of their support and their efforts to get more involved in our work by volunteering and hosting group fundraisers.

Corporations
DC Central Kitchen receives significant financial and in-kind support from local corporate partners. We’re proud to have many of our corporate partners listed as top corporate philanthropists by the Washington Business Journal, including Capital One, Clark Enterprises, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, Geppetto Catering, and many others.

Latest Equipment Donations Will Improve Meal Production

At DC Central Kitchen, we believe waste is wrong, whether that’s waste of nutritious food, productive minds, or even useful kitchen equipment. So we’re always taking advantage of the opportunities out there to make our operations run more efficiently and effectively.

We wouldn’t have these opportunities if it weren’t for our partners, who look to us to be creative and find ways to utilize what could have been thrown away.

As a result of their kitchen upgrade, we are delighted this week to receive a large donation of equipment from our friends at the IMF and Sodexo including:

• 2 double stack convection ovens
• 1 Alto Sham Combi Oven (this is a really important, expensive piece enabling us to improve the quality and healthiness of our meals)
• 1 flat top griddle

In addition, we received a brand new blast chiller from our friends at CoBank. This is an essential item that will improve how we package and deliver meals.

The value of these donations will save DC Central Kitchen tens of thousands of dollars in equipment costs and productivity.

4 Reasons We’re Not A Soup Kitchen

DC Central Kitchen is about using food as a tool for empowerment. Here are men and women graduating from our 14 week Culinary Job Training Program.

The most common misconception about DC Central Kitchen is that we’re a soup kitchen. Here are 4 ways we are very different.

DC Central Kitchen doesn’t serve meals. Unlike a soup kitchen, no one lines up at our door to receive a meal. Using recycled food from the community and an army of volunteers, our main kitchen in the basement of the largest shelter in America produces 5,000 meals every day that are distributed to nearly 100 partner agencies around the city. The meals we produce help defray food costs of the agencies we serve, allowing them to focus more of their limited resources on their unique programming.

DC Central Kitchen is not a feeding organization. Simply feeding more people is not our goal. Food is a tool, a gateway, to make people’s lives better. With every meal we distribute comes a message of empowerment. Through our 14 week Culinary Job Training Program, we’re shortening the line of hungry people and breaking the cycle of dependency by providing real opportunities for people to make their lives better through hard work.

Our volunteers work alongside the people they are helping. This is different than a soup kitchen, where volunteers are working behind a sneeze guard barrier. At DC Central Kitchen, our volunteers chop and dice alongside students and graduates from our 14 week Culinary Job Training Program, which includes men and women just out of prison, individuals who were formally homeless, and people that once suffered from addictions. It’s not just about chopping and dicing. We’re challenging stereotypes about “the poor” and “the hungry” in the process.

We’ve pioneered social enterprise. We don’t get by pleading for pennies. Through our healthy meals for DC Public Schools, in-house catering business, and partnership with corner stores to provide fresh produce, we’re generating 60% of our own revenue, becoming more sustainable, and providing innovative solutions to combat hunger and promote health in the community. All of our social enterprise projects employ our culinary graduates at living wages and provide more opportunities for those who were previously dependent on society to give back.

The Critical Role of Our Transportation Team

At DC Central Kitchen, transportation has always been an integral part of our mission. Without our fleet of 19 vehicles, we couldn’t serve the over 10,000 meals we produce each day to partner agencies and DC schools.

Chris Lucas, our Transportation Manager, ensures that our Transportation Department operates with efficiency and professionalism. His team of 10 drivers are the first to clock in each morning, hitting the road to pick up donations or deliver healthy meals around the city. Odds are you’ve spotted one of DCCK’s trucks out on the road. And our drivers are often the first and most familiar faces seen by the agencies we serve.

 “Professional interaction with clients is very important,” says Chris. Drivers are often asked questions about what we do. “Most people think we’re a soup kitchen. Our drivers have to explain we are so much more.”

“When I started, I was excited to work here. While in training, I remember one of the guys training me saying in conversation, ‘if we mess up, people don’t eat.’ I remember thinking, ‘man, this is serious business!’”

Attention to detail and safety are among Chris’ priorities for his team. “We have to be a can-do department. There is no dropping the ball.”

In the past few months, Chris has worked to make safety more of a priority. Since the start of the year, we’re proud to say there have been no safety issues. Chris plans to take the department in a greener direction to really set us apart.

Hats off to the amazing work of Chris and our drivers, helping us feed the soul of the city!