ICIC Summit Live: Food - Not just good for our bellies, but also our inner city economies

For the first time – ever – I walked in to a conference luncheon and was greeted by a grilled chicken salad. No cookies? No potato chips? No roast beef sandwiches? This is a first. But I like it. I could use a healthy meal for a change.

As it turns out, healthy food was the topic of our luncheon keynote. Joining us for the Summit was Revolution Foods CEO, Kristin Groos Richmond. A little history about Revolution Foods: Founded in 2006 with virtually no employees, Kristin and her co-founder set out to transform the way children were served foods in schools. Particularly in the most underserved neighborhoods, Revolution Foods began serving 1,000 meals per year to students in Oakland, California – 80% of which were to students on the reduced- or free-lunch plan.

Now in its fifth year, the company has 750+ workers and serves over 450,000 meals per year to students throughout California, Washington, D.C., Houston, Newark, and Denver – the list just keeps on growing. With greater access to healthy foods (which Kristin points out must also be very tasty, otherwise students would not embrace the program), students’ attention has increased in class, there are fewer disciplinary actions on the playground, and test scores have risen.

While the goal of Revolution Foods was to bring healthy foods to students (many of whom eat two meals, plus snacks at school each day) – there were numerous economic development impacts.

Revolution Foods only hires local workers from the communities in which they work. No workers are taken from the California program to other cities as the company scales its operations. Instead, the company works with local workforce development organizations to train workers in preparation for new Revolution Foods’ programs.

So, these are food service jobs – big deal, right? Lunch ladies were never known to bring home the bacon (or….were they….?)….

Part of Revolution Foods’ commitment to the community is not only hiring local residents, but also doing so with sustainable wages and health care benefits, automatic profit-sharing after one year of employment, and numerous promotion opportunities.

Revolution Foods is an excellent model of how a company can profit while simultaneously doing good for the local economy. It showcases just one of the myriad opportunities for entrepreneurship within the growing food cluster.

Importantly, the job opportunities within the food cluster are typically tightly aligned with the skills of our inner city residents. While the food cluster may not be nearly as sexy and glamorous as the biotech industry or mobile technology, there are numerous opportunities – from restaurants, to farmer’s markets and neighborhood grocery stores, to school nutrition programs and food trucks, to warehousing and supply chain logistics – for inner city residents to enter the workforce and capture these positions with little to no formal training.

With the keynote complete, we’re headed downstairs to go listen to the “Food 2.0” panel – which will include research from ICIC’s research team, Karp Consulting, and NextStreet, among others.  Tune in to watch the live broadcast at www.icic.org/live or follow us on Twitter @icicorg and #ICICSummit.

BY Amanda Maher on October 4th, 2011

TAGS: