building a just, equitable, resilient regional food economy

About This Project

Summary

CommonWealth Kitchen is food business development social enterprise leveraging the power of inclusive entrepreneurship to build a food economy grounded in racial, social and environmental justice. Our sytems-based approach integrates shared kitchen operations, business education and market access for diverse foodpreneurs, plus operation of our own food manufacturing operation that is connecting dots in our fragmented supply chain from farms to institutions like colleges, hospitals, K-12 schools.

Goals & Objectives

CWK's manufacturing operation sources locally-grown, largely surplus, B-grade or underutilized NE-grown crops that we turn into ready-to-eat soups, sauces and veggie tots and sell to local colleges, hospitals & K-12 schools to divert food waste, strengthen farms, and improve healthy food access.

Results & Impact

For 2025, we'll process 125K+ #'s of surplus tomatoes- (equivalent of 20 school buses), that we'll turn into sauce, plus tons of surplus kale into pesto and yellow peas into a veggie fritter for K-12 schools and others. This unique processing model has enormous potential for scale and replication.